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Elvis Costello and The Confederates put on the kind of show few would have been disappointed with — without necessarily being seen to be pandering to crowd expectations, the material consisted of a handful of old hits, tracks from recent albums and a few so new they haven't been recorded yet.
The Costello reviews run in Juke over the last 18 months from various parts of the world have accentuated the quiet excellence of his shows, and the ones on the Australian tour were no different. There were duets (with Cait O'Riordan and Nick Lowe), there was passion and there was power, and there was subtlety and grind.
What struck me most about Costello on-stage was that despite that air of casualness and, umm, art (if they don't like it, too bad) the man is clearly a thinker ... about the effects of the music and its best exhibition within the structure of the show. He handles it with care, rather than going it blind, treating each song similarly. There are no cliches here concerning "building up a show" and "giving light and shade."
The set opened with Elvis and acoustic guitar and a few of the hits: aside from feeling his way into the crowd, it also gave him the opportunity to get the hits out of the way. The crowd was on its feet, despite the best efforts of the men in white.
The band came, went and came back again.
And what a band it was. James Burton has amazingly light fingers: more important, he had a feeling that clearly appreciated what Costello is on about. He was joined by bassist Jerry Scheff (both worked together on Costello's King Of America and, of course the other Elvis) drummer Jim Keltner and keyboards-player Austin de Lone. As a unit they were good, tight and thorough on "King Of America," "New Amsterdam," "Blood And Chocolate" and "Tokyo Storm Warning." However, as stage performers they hardly showed any personality, leaving Costello the lone job of keeping alive Festival Hall. He did it mostly through the absolute quality of such songs as opener "The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes," "Oliver's Army" and a post-holocaust "Pump It Up."
The highlight of the show was an impassioned rendition of "I Want You" which played a role as a keystone in both the last LP and the show. If a performance such as this is as much theatre as it is music, Costello convinced that he was reliving some macabre sexual jealousy of a distant affair onstage. And with two encores that lasted almost as long as the show. who could complain? I'd have to go back a long way to remember songs performed as well.
Nick Lowe as the ideal opener for the show. Aside from some hinted compatibility with his involvement in the headliner's career, Lowe proved that his selection of songs (including "Cruel To Be Kind" and "I Knew The Bride") could have life breathed into them with just his ambling persona and acoustic guitar.
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