CostelloNews.com

Vintage Costello serves up an evening worth bottling
Iain Shedden , The Australian
22 Nov04

IT'S unusual to find Elvis Costello playing in a vineyard: even funnier when titles such as Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down and I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down pepper the set.
Given his savage wit and love of word play, perhaps he chose those titles on purpose. Whatever the motivation, Costello's choice of material from his vast catalogue was as inspired as his performance on this first date of his Australian tour.

The dark country tinge of his latest album, Delivery Man, was the main influence. Songs from it, such as the bleak, angular Country Darkness and the title song were accompanied by tracks from his 20-year-old salute to Nashville, the album Almost Blue.

Good Year for the Roses and the aforementioned Bottle lament were just two of the highlights of this truly great performance.

That this set with his Imposters was almost entirely different to the one they performed here two years ago came as a sharp reminder of just how many great songs Costello has recorded. Outside the country domain, we got early classics such as Accidents Will Happen, Alison, Radio Radio and Blame It on Cain.

Dressed in a dapper suit and red tie, Costello hurried through the set with little banter. Perhaps this was an effort to get through it before the rain returned. Yet the soggy weather didn't dampen enthusiasm in the 4000-strong crowd and the man looked genuinely pleased to be there.

After nearly 30 years, on and off, at Costello's side, drummer Pete Thomas and keyboard player Steve Naive fit Costello's songs like a well-worn glove, yet they still bring a vital spark to the music, as does relative newcomer Davey Faragher on bass.

Costello seems to enjoy this comfort zone, which allows him to batter his guitar or add a subtle finesse at will as the band rocks solidly behind him.

That intensity reached a crescendo during the encore, when the glorious sweep of his greatest pop song, Oliver's Army, was followed by one his best rockers, Pump It Up. The latter came complete with the customary outdoor audience participation moment. So pumped was the atmosphere that even tired, cynical music critics were seen to raise their hands in the air. It was one of those nights.

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Saturday was a busy day... and finally had to make the 170km (100 mile?) or so trip to the Bimbadgen Estate to make it in time for the start of the show at 4pm that afternoon (party went until 1pm). The weather was absolutely miserable all of the trip up and rain was inevitable... it was also quite a bit colder than I was expecting at the winery, so I was going to regret my decision to wear just a t-shirt.

There were four support acts in the lead up to the Imposters, each having a 30 minute spot. The first act we caught was Mick Thomas (formerly of a band known as Weddings, Parties and Anything - for anyone who might be interested). He was performing an accoustic set and was abley accompanied by a fiddle player whose name I cannot recall (but she was very good). They put in a very serviceable set which was aided by a few amusing annecdotes to fill the gaps between songs.

Following his performance, the stage announcer came on and informed the crowd that the locals insisted there would be no rain and that this was supported by the radar showing no rain... 5 minutes later down came the rain.

Next up was a rather (I assume) inebriated Stephen Cummings accompanied by his long time guitarist Mark O'Meara, who performed 5 ro 6 of his back catalogue, drawing on his time with his band The Sports and his more recent solo career. Songs like She Set Fire To The House, Who Listens To The Radio, and How Come. Steve's set seemed to last about 20 minutes as opposed to the 30 allocated and was by no means the most coherent I have seen him put in - I certainly hope he makes a bit more of an effort for those going to the State Theatre and other shows.

Next up was Diesel who put in a very impressive upbeat solo performance. This guy is an unbelievably good guitarist and has a superb vocal range (although he does tend to overdo the high notes a little). Diesel was followed by Jo Camilleri (of Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons and The Black Sorrows as well as being writer of the EC recorded song, So Young) who was performing with an upright bass player and an electric guitarist (first electric instrument of the day)... Camilleri himself was playing accoustic guitar and saxophone. He mentioned we was going to perform a song about rain and immediately the rain stopped and did not return for the rest of the night - a nice bit of reverse psycholgy there (if that can be applied to weather conditions). This was a typically superb Jo Camilleri set and I would say that he is possibly one of the most underrated performers on the planet... get his albums!!

Finally it was time for Elvis Costello and the Imposters. This time there was no walk on theme playing as an introduction, but rather they just ambled on stage, plugged in, and away they went ripping into Accidents Will Happen, Tear Off Your Own Head and Waiting Til The End Of The World.. Unfortunately, I think this may have taken the sound people by surprise (not to mention the crowd) as it seemed to take a while to get a resonable balance in the sound. Maybe everyone’s ears had become attuned to the preceding accoustic acts?

Elvis was resplendent in black suit and red tie, while Steve Nieve was in full mad professor mode: long flapping overcoat, unruley hair and general demeanor at the keyboards (he also gave the theramin a real workout... yay!!).

One thing I liked about this concert was that they were dragging out a few tunes I can’t recall seeing done for a while... and with fairly unusual arrangements. Songs like I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down, Everyday I Write the Book, Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down, and Sittin’ And Thinkin’ just to name a few.

At one point things seemed to be getting a little out of control down at the front of the stage and Elvis was led to make a comment regarding some people thinking it was still 1978, immediately after which he broke into Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down. Generally though, what made this concert such a pleasurable experience was the fact that you had I don’t know how many people (2 or 3 thousand?) all there for a good time, lounging about on the lawns, drinking wine (I certainly enjoyed a nice bottle of the local Shiraz, Cabernet Merlot), and there were The Imposters just ripping through song after song, obviously enjoying themselves as well. It even seemed as if a lot of the song selections were spur of the moment driven by interractions between the band and the audience, and that certainly added to the fun of the evening.

I probably had only one real gripe on the day (I even enjoyed the rain) and that was that the souvenir people were selling t-shirts only in sizes s, M, and L... no XL for god’s sake!! Even the man himself would not get into anything less I would think!