CostelloNews.com

Delivering the goods again

GRAEME THOMSON October 04 2004

Barrowland seems an unlikely venue for Elvis
Costello's only European show in support of his
excellent new album, The Delivery Man. His recently
discovered taste for the finer things in life would
appear to preclude an evening's bug-eyed bawling in
the east end of Glasgow.

Marriage to glammy jazz artist Diana Krall and
relocation to New York and Vancouver have teased some
of the latent luvvie out of the 50-year-old. Thanking
Elton John and David Furnish in your sleeve notes is
usually an unambiguous signal that an artist's journey
towards his own backside and on into self-regarding
irrelevance has commenced. Costello, however, just
about manages to juggle his high falutin' tendencies
with the cherished misanthropy of an eternal outsider.
Hence the classical collaborations and ballet scores
on the one hand and a rowdy roots'n'roll gig at
Barrowland on the other.

Costello – who has Irish ancestry – lambasts the "sour
English" in Needle Time, one of his best new songs,
and it's tempting to view the decision to launch his
record in Glasgow, away from what he sees as the
petty-minded critical whims of London, as a dig at an
England he left in 1989 and has steadily grown to
revile. Whatever the reason, unlike another Elvis (who
reportedly had ancestors in Fraserburgh but only ever
made it to Prestwick airport), Costello has been a
frequent and welcome visitor here. His first foray in
the late summer of 1977, transforming the chugging
pleasantries of My Aim Is True into something utterly
ferocious with the mighty Attractions in tow, saw him
burning off spleen under the bright lights of
Edinburgh's Tiffany's, Falkirk's Mannequin Ballroom
and Paisley's Silver Thread; Glasgow itself was
off-limits, the council having deemed all loosely
labelled "punk" acts a danger to its famously demure
citizens.

Costello's taste for the exotic wasn't curbed by
regular appearances on Top Of The Pops. On the
contrary. By 1980, close to his commercial peak, he
could be found peddling the hyper-soul sounds of Get
Happy! in West Calder's Regal Suite and Dunfermline's
Kinema, dusty corners long neglected by even the most
modest of bands. He later commented, ruefully: "We
often found out why." But the singer seemed to
recognise a musical affinity. In 1981, he tacitly
acknowledged the Scots' historical weakness for the
macho sentimentality of country music by choosing
Aberdeen's Metro Hotel to premiere the songs from his
somewhat callow country covers album, Almost Blue.
According to bassist Bruce Thomas: "Aberdeen was the
only place in the UK we could play country music
without being bottled." (Incidentally, Elvis also
wrote the bulk of the imperious Man Out Of Time while
in the north-east). At the Barrowland in 1994, egged
on by the crowd, he gave an ultra-rare outing to Leon
Payne's twisted Psycho, a true treasure from the vast
Costello country vaults.

But, arguably, his most memorable booking came away
from the cities. Stopping off in Shetland on his way
back from a rather trying holiday cruise to Greenland
in 1987, Costello ducked into Lerwick's Thule Bar for
a Guinness and was smitten to discover a couple of his
own songs on the jukebox. He returned in April 1988
for a number of short solo appearances at the island's
annual folk festival. The halls were tiny, and he
relished the intense interaction with his audience.
For instance, it was in Shetland that Costello
realised that Tramp The Dirt Down – his infamous
protest song explicitly wishing the death of Margaret
Thatcher – was going to make a substantial impact. "I
sang it in one place that was very brightly lit and I
could see the audience quite clearly," he recalled.
"There was one guy nodding away, applauding every line
and, on the other side, another guy was being
physically restrained from getting up on stage and
hitting me. He just fused. And I thought, 'Well, I've
really got a winner now'."

Never happy unless at extremes, Costello also
previewed an extemporaneous new song at the festival's
children's concert, concerning less weighty themes.
"Summertime above the Arctic circle," he barked at the
bewildered children. "And all the huskies go bow wow
wow!" On his way home, he made an impromptu appearance
at a benefit show for the striking National Union of
Seamen at Aberdeen Music Hall and – as promised –
returned to Shetland in 1991 with his band.

There have been numerous other highlights: the
stunning solo show at Edinburgh Playhouse in late
1984, which captured an artist beginning to feel his
way out of a career cul-de-sac towards the emotional
rejuvenation of the King Of America album; a later
pair of Edinburgh shows – one solo, one revved up with
the Attractions – on the landmark Spinning Songbook
tour of 1986, when Costello responded to a begging
letter from a young girl by inviting her dad onstage
to spin the wheel; the emotionally charged opening
night of the blitzkrieg world tour with the Brodsky
Quartet at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall in 1993; a duo
show with Steve Nieve at the same venue in 1999,
stretching for three hours across vast and often
neglected expanses of Costello's repertoire and
described by one reviewer as "absolutely staggering".
And on and on. Fret not if you missed some of them or,
indeed, them all. There's no reason to suppose that
Wednesday night in Glasgow won't see Costello
delivering the goods once again.

Complicated Shadows: The Life and Music of Elvis
Costello, Graeme Thomson, Canongate, £16.99. Elvis
Costello & The Imposters play the Barrowland, Glasgow,
on Wednesday.