July 2003, FleetBoston Pavilion, Boston, Mass.
I had a roommate in college who was big into Elvis Costello, and every night I came home from my shift at the college newspaper he was playing some Costello song.
Up to that point I hadn’t known too much Costello past the songs everyone heard — “Alison,” “Everyday I Write the Book” — and I asked my roommate one day why he liked his music so much. “Listen to this,” and he handed me the The Best of Elvis Costello and the Attractions, a compilation album that came out two years before “and then ask me that question.”
Compilation albums were a big thing in the 1980s for bands of an alternative bent, and proved boons to Depeche Mode, Squeeze and New Order. The same could be said for Elvis Costello, for it introduced me to songs (“Oliver’s Army,” “Clubland,” “Shipbuilding”) I might not have discovered in his vast array of work. Starting in 1977, Costello had 10 albums by the time I started college (1986) with two of those albums (King of America and Blood & Chocolate) coming out in ’86 alone. Prolific and crazy.
Move forward two decades, and after my wife got me a record player for Christmas, my goal was to get all the Costello albums in vinyl (I’m still looking for Punch the Clock). But I still hadn’t seen the man play live — until a trip to Boston afforded the chance.
In 2003 Costello, who was inducted into the rock hall of fame that year, was moving toward more jazz and ballad territory, eschewing the punk persona that got him banned from Saturday Night Live. North, his 19th studio album, came out in September of that year to mild success, and its ballads (and his recent relationship to Diana Krall) was influencing his musical choices. It certainly did in this show.
And it wasn’t that every song became a ballad, but more that he played with the tempo for an interesting take.
He came out all in black and ripped into “Waiting for the End of the World” and “Beyond Belief” (from 1982’s Imperial Bedroom) before “Radio, Radio” and a lively version of “Everyday I Write the Book” had the audience all in. My wife and I were sitting in the back of the pavilion (behind two women WHO WOULD NOT SHUT UP, seriously why do you go to a show if all you’re going to do is gab, can’t you do that home?)
He went into semi-deep track mode, with “Clubland,” “Clown Strike,” “Complicated Shadows,” “Miracle Man,” “Just About Glad” and “Either Side of the Same Town” to follow. But then he carted out a surprise, bringing a jazzy, swing-dance tempo to “Watching the Detectives,” a truly dramatic and inventive take on one of his best songs. I guess when you play a song a certain number of times, you want to find a way to reinvent it for yourself.
He then went all young man Costello with a rousing “Pump It Up” to close the main set. The two encores went longer than I thought, as he continued to roam through his vast catalog with “Man Out of Time,” “Shipbuilding” and “I Hope You’re Happy Now” before ending with a Costello staple “(What’s So Funny ‘bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”.
It was a masterful set from a master. I would see him a year later and the set was vastly different (and include “Alison”), but still packed with Costello gems. It is true, Elvis is the king.
