|
Elvis Costello and Daryl Hall's joint tour came to New York City on Tuesday night, specifically to the showplace of the nation, Radio City Music Hall.
For those scratching their heads after hearing those two names together — this writer included when she initially heard it several months ago — there is a history. Four decades ago, Hall contributed harmony vocals to one of Costello's albums, 1984's Goodbye Cruel World, on a song called "The Only Flame in Town." (Hall also appeared in the accompanying music video. From Costello's album liner notes: "Naturally, my romantic rival was Daryl, but my only real humiliation was in having a Columbia promotion woman hector the makeup girl: 'Make him look handsome,' while a very hungover Daryl sat in the next chair looking like a movie star. His hair was perfect.")
And it isn't as though the two come from entirely different worlds, even if from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. While Hall and his one-time musical partner John Oates crafted what might be described as new wave soul, Costello was just a couple years away from taking similar elements and mixing them with a pub rock feel and a Dylan-like lyrical sensibility. Of course, none of these terms are absolute and mostly exist to help categorize artists on a commercial level, but if there is one thing Hall and Costello have in common, it's that they created the kind of "pop" music that moved the musical needle forward.
Costello took the stage first, donning his signature cockeyed fedora and Fender Jazzmaster, and he brought up the aforementioned "The Only Flame in Town" music video, giving the (as would soon be clear) Hall-oriented audience a reminder of why he was there.
"Daryl arrived I think directly from Studio 54," he said." In that moment, I thought, 'Fuck it, I've got a chance... it's amazing what black coffee and Visine can do."
Costello's band is back to the usual five-piece. Last week, the lineup shifted quite dramatically with both bassist Davey Faragher and guitarist Charlie Sexton out sick, leaving Costello performing only with drummer Pete Thomas and pianist Steve Nieve — or as Costello put it himself, "as close to the Attractions as you're ever gonna get."
And he's using it to his full advantage. While some songs stuck closer to their original arrangements, others took on new shapes. "Indoor Fireworks" loped along like the kind of country track Johnny Cash might have included on American Recordings. "Mystery Dance" featured Costello playing a guitar once owned by Chuck Berry — "He played it better" — and was made into a scorching blues number.
Then came Hall. "Been a while since I've been in this room," he said. "Seems kind of formal, we'll make it work."
Like Costello, Hall played the big hits, with a few solo numbers thrown in, and it was almost immediately evident that for however many audience members left the venue after Costello's set, they were vastly outnumbered by those who had clearly come for Hall.
Regardless, it was impossible to ignore the jarring and noticeable juxtaposition between Costello's singing of songs about dragging lakes and leaving fingers lying in wedding cakes to considerably less incisive numbers that, for the most part, neatly followed the studio versions. For all the things the two acts may have in common, it's not a parallelism that translates well to the live stage.
Still, you'll hear the classics from both artists in one form or another, and it's hard to argue with two for the price of one.
| 
