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Elvis Costello & The Imposters
@ Sydney Opera House, Sydney,
31st March 2024
(Live Review)Review by Alec Smart
Photos by Daniel Boud
Elvis Costello performed at Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on Saturday 31 March, the first of three consecutive nights over the 2024 Easter long weekend. He was accompanied by The Imposters, his 4-piece backing band since 2002.
Costello appeared dapper on the Concert Hall stage, in black suit, brown hat and a matching red scarf and shirt with white polka dots. He alternated between at least seven guitars, ranging from a Fender Jaguar with his name embossed in cursive text along the fretboard, to a semi-acoustic with six tone and volume controls, an electric 12-string, an electric six-string (that the fretboard mysteriously fell off in the closing minutes of the night), and two acoustic guitars, one a Spanish for his Latino reworking of several old songs (including 1980 hit Clubland).
The 25-songs set list of the Opera House concert contained many of his classics, plus several recent compositions, including Big Stars Have Tumbled, a non-album track written for the musical A Face in the Crowd; Mistook Me For a Friend and Magnificent Hurt from the most recent album The Boy Named If; and an as-yet unreleased new track, Like Licorice on Your Tongue.
Early in the evening Costello warned, tongue planted firmly in cheek, that most of his songs had girls’ names in the title, and proposed the audience make a few requests before they settled into a routine. A plethora of suggestions rolled in before he dedicated Accidents Will Happen to a woman in the upper front tiers.
Someone called out ‘Shipbuilding’ and Elvis responded that it wasn’t on the list, but might be attempted later.
Ultimately it wasn’t, although this beautifully-crafted anti-war ballad, with lyrics detailing the irony that the shipyards of Britain were temporarily resurrected from terminal decline to build battleships for war in which to send young men to their deaths, is among his most exceptional material.
Robert Wyatt’s original version (with Costello on guitar and backing vocals) had the honourable distinction of being banned by the BBC during the 1982 Falklands War for its anti-war sentiment, along with Split Enz’ Six Months in A Leaky Boat, the latter merely because it was a sea shanty about a sinking boat.
Another song that was also critical of the socio-economic effects of war, Oliver’s Army (inspired by ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland), Costello has recently self-censored and stopped performing. This is due to the perceived racism in the lyric “All it takes is one itchy trigger, one more widow, one less white nigger.”
Although the song, once a staple of Costello’s live repertoire, was a chart-topper on its release in 1979, with a sprightly piano part inspired by ABBA’s Dancing Queen, radio stations have recently taken to bleeping out the N-word.
This drew attention to the (somewhat dated) jargon and censored it without context (much like the invective ‘faggot’ used by a drunken feuding couple in The Pogues’ infamous Xmas song Fairytale of New York that has caused similar consternation), which irritated Costello.
In a January 2022 interview with The Guardian, Costello declared, “Sadly that two-word slang is a historical fact. It was a derogatory term for Irish Catholics, which I sang to make the point. One dreads to think how the officer class spoke about people of colour. Perhaps I’d express the same idea differently now. I’ve tried changing that verse, but after 44 years I’m done singing it.”
Unfortunate, because this reviewer was hoping it might feature in Costello’s set, perhaps reworked in a Latino format.
Costello’s highly versatile accompanying quartet, The Imposters, feature guitarist Charlie Sexton (composer and acclaimed session musician, and for many years prominent member of Bob Dylan’s band), bassist Davey Farragher, and two of Costello’s longest collaborators, drummer Pete Thomas and pianist Steve Nieve.
The latter two featured in The Attractions, Costello’s backing band since 1977 whom he first recruited for his second solo album, This Year’s Model.
The Imposters have accompanied Costello since 2001 and recorded eight albums although they have only been named as Elvis Costello & The Imposters on four: The Delivery Man (2003); Momofuku (2008); Look Now (2018); and their most recent release, The Boy Named If (2022).
The Imposters are essentially a contemporary version of Costello’s previous backing band, The Attractions, with whom he recorded nine studio albums between 1977-1986 and 1994-1996.
The Attractions, which split primarily due to tensions between Costello and bassist Bruce Thomas, dissolved after collaborating on Costello’s critically-acclaimed album Blood & Chocolate (1986), but returned for Brutal Youth (1994) – albeit without Bruce Thomas – and were later hired to perform on All this Useless Beauty (1996).
Elvis Costello & The Imposters’ three Opera House concerts over Easter, and their headlining Bluesfest in Byron Bay a few days previous, was a rescheduling of their 2023 Australian tour – their first Australian tour since 2014. This was delayed a year due to “a key member of the band” [Elvis] catching Covid-19.
Some critics suggested the coronavirus affected Costello’s vocal chords after audiences in Australia and USA have expressed disappointment over the past 12 months that his normally versatile singing has sounded occasionally strained or off-key.
During his 31 March Opera House performance there were several moments in the first half when Costello’s normally husky, 2.8 octaves (baritone-tenor) range went sharp or flat.
In a very unfavourable review in the Sydney Morning Herald, titled ‘Worst show in 42 years’, reviewer Bernard Zuel described Costello’s vocal performance at the Opera House Concert Hall as “rough and ready finding pitch and melody… and regularly fell short of key notes.”
It was perhaps attributable to onstage blips in the sound mixing when Costello couldn’t hear the instruments clearly. However, his occasional song writing partner and fellow Irishman, Paul McCartney, aged 81, also sounds a little reedy in his live performances of late, so this reviewer suspects it’s age-related.
In Costello’s defence, this is his 70th year (he becomes a septuagenarian on 25 August 2024) and after a prolific career writing hundreds of songs (including many for other performers) and releasing 33 studio albums and nine collaboration albums of songs over five decades, his vocal chords might expect to be somewhat strained.
Vocal performances aside, the show was really stolen by the masterful finger dexterity of Steve Nieve. The keyboard maestro alternated between a grand piano, a melodeon (parlour organ, sometimes programmed to resemble a modern synthesiser) and a melodica (three-octave portable wind instrument with piano keys and a tube to blow into), sometimes utilising all three in the same song!
Costello showed his own keyboard skills, undertaking piano duties during Face in the Crowd and Blood and Hot Sauce. This came after an epic reworking of his much-loved Watching the Detectives, which began as a slow, jazzy number with Costello sat on a stool accompanied by Nieve on melodica, then lurched into rock & roll, and finally, with delayed vocals and guitar effects, a full-blown electronica blow-out.
This reviewer kind of agrees with the Herald report that the formidable talent of guitarist Charlie Sexton was underplayed; he loitered stage-side most of the evening and seldom got to shine.
The band played two encores, albeit without leaving the stage, with Costello swapping his brown short-brimmed hat for a scarlet one and Nieve donning a sparkling gold jacket as the tempo ratcheted up a notch. The crowd rose to their feet in the seated venue and danced along to old favourites (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea, Pump It Up, Alison and the night’s closer, (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.
Incidentally, Sydney Opera House has significant memories for Elvis Costello (real name Declan McManus). It was here he met his wife Diana Krall, Canadian jazz singer-songwriter and pianist after she performed in the Concert Hall on 15 and 16 July 2002.
A multi-award-winning talent, Krall has recorded 15 studio albums (which have sold in their millions) and has latterly collaborated with Costello on a number of projects and songs. They were married on 6 December 2003, at Elton John’s Woodside estate in Old Windsor, west of London and have since had twin sons.
Set List
Hetty O’Hara Confidential
Watch Your Step
Mystery Dance
Radio Radio
My Baby Just Squeals (You Heal)
Like Licorice on Your Tongue
Jack of all Parades
Accidents Will Happen
Big Stars Have Tumbled
Mistook Me For a Friend
Watching the Detectives
A Face in the Crowd
Blood & Hot Sauce
Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy (Mose Allison cover)
Good Year for the Roses (Jerry Chesnut cover)
Brilliant Mistake
Clubland
Wonder Woman
Every Day I Write the Book Encore:
I Still Have That Other Girl
(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea
Magnificent Hurt
Pump It Up
Alison
(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding (Brinsley Schwarz cover)
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.AMNPLIFY – DB
