What a gig. This is the third time Ive seen Costello over the years and easily the best. Elvis played for over 2 hours with several songs from his latest When I Was Cruel album between generous helpings from his extensive back catalogue.

Although the 30, 40 and 50 something audience came mainly to hear the classics , the more conventional of his sonically adventurous new songs such as 45 and Tear Your Own Head (Its A Doll Revolution) were greeted rapturously even though the crowds response to Elvis trying to get us to sing along to Spooky Girlfriend was distinctly underwhelming. The epic, droning title track from the new LP took centre stage in Elvis set and whilst being an interesting departure, isnt quite interesting enough to hold this watchers attention over its several minutes.

The performance started a little uncertainly with the sound balance not quite right although there were excellent versions of I Dont Want To Go To Chelsea, The Other Side Of Summer and Watching The Detectives and a moving Good Year For The Roses in between lesser known songs. It went up a further gear after 40 minutes with the brilliant Motown punk of High Fidelity followed by I Cant Stand Up For Falling Down, two songs which bookend what is arguably Elvis best ever album Get Happy. These were soon followed by an excellent version of a song Elvis has recently written for Solomon Burkes new album before Costello changed his clanging electric for a strumming acoustic guitar.

This guitar change made Steve Nieves superb keyboard work and Elviss brilliant, emotional vocals even more evident as the band played, brilliant, powerful versions of Ill Wear It Proudly and Deep Dark Truthful Mirror before the absolute pié ce de resistance. Shipbuilding was awesome - superb piano work by Nïeve with beautiful jazz chord changes around an understated melody and subtle lyric about impending war, the pertinence of which in the present day wasnt lost on performer or audience. This moving superb performance got the biggest ovation of the night.

After Shipbuilding, Elvis reverted to his electric guitar for a few more rockers including a fantastic, scathing I Hope Youre Happy Now. Returning for encores, he further made his way through his back catalogue of hits with Radio Radio, Whats So Funny Bout Peace Love & Understanding and Pump It up. A couple of more adventurous newer songs also featured as well as a haunting piano led Almost Blue before the set finally closed with an anguished, epic I Want You.

We all then left the gig very happy that we had got our moneys worth of songs even though Elvis hadnt managed to fit Alison into tonights set. A slightly more disappointing omission for me though was nothing from his excellent-in-places last album with Attractions, Brutal Youth but you cant have everything!

Elvis band The Imposters featuring former Attractions Pete Thomas and Steve Nieve alongside new boy Davey Carragher (?) were superb and surely one of the best backing bands in the world. They played fast and loud when required but were always supremely tight together as well as providing more gentle sympathetic backing to the ballads. Special praise must be made to Nïeve, the best keyboardist I have ever seen live who bounds around the 6 keyboards and thermin which surround him on 3 sides. He played piano, organ and synth superbly throughout the evening, often playing different keyboards with each hand whilst energetically and flamboyantly twisting his body from one instrument to another.

The support was provided by Chris Difford and a 3-piece acoustic backing band who treated an appreciative audience to country tinged versions of Squeeze classics as well as a few songs from his new solo album. Although Glenn Tilbrook is a better singer and musician, Difford has somehow always been the soul of Squeeze for me and it was a moving privilege to see and hear the great man in chipper mood even though his versions of the Squeeze classics lacked the variety of the originals. I sang along in my head to all the classics from my youth which I still love now and seemed to know the lyrics better than the great man himself who missed a line from the last verse of Cool For Cats but carried on, not realising he had made this mistake until he reached the chorus 4 bars too early. Help said Difford to much warm amusement from the audience - you start to forget things at my age!!

Fieldfare Guru
14.9.02