CostelloNews.com

Pop Matters -

This was my fifth time seeing Costello, and clearly the second best show I've seen him give. Though it had its peaks and valleys, about half-way through Elvis turned on the gas and never let up, finishing his set after 2.00am. Wearing a blue & pink tie with orange-tinted glasses, Elvis was, as always, the epitome of cool, and he seemed quite pleased to be at SXSW, reporting that he had just jammed with Hubert Sumlin up the street. Elvis ripped through dozens of songs, connecting his newer material with his classics and demonstrating again and again the incredible depth and breadth of his artistry. Jumping from frenetic, Northern soul to offbeat, discordant ballads, from straight-ahead rock to pure, traditional country, he somehow managed to tie everything together cohesively. Some of his classics, like "Radio Radio" and "Watching the Detectives", sounded kind of tired, but many others he breathed new life into, especially "Blame It on Cain", which turned into an extended jam. "High Fidelity", "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea", "Clubland", and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, & Understanding" were other highlights, but for me, the show's best moment came in the juxtaposition of two fantastic soul songs. The best song on Elvis's latest album, "Either Side of the Same Town", sounds to me like a very successful tribute to the soul classic "The Dark End of the Street", and Elvis followed it with his cover of "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down", which flowed slowly out of "Either Side" at first and then exploded into a full-fledged romp. As I exited the show, I saw Elvis, drenched in sweat and satisfied, board his bus and head on out into the Austin night. Indeed, the King had left the building.

Billboard -

Sardine-like conditions greeted Costello and the Imposters as the clock welcomed St. Patrick's Day, and the group turned out 28 songs in a set that broke generally accepted SXSW rules by running more than two hours. Nearly all of his latest album, "The Delivery Man," was laid out amid old favorites like "Mystery Dance," "Chelsea" and "Radio Radio" and more recent fare such as "When I Was Cruel No. 2," "Bedlam" and the Oscar-nominated "Scarlet Tide."

Being that it was a rare club date during a tour of theaters, it was not surprising that the set opened a little looser than would have been expected. The band barreled through about eight songs before Costello was able to rein in his mates, who seemed on the verge of unraveling at any moment. With things more under control and the sound mix improved, the band relaxed into a stellar showcase that the bandleader visibly enjoyed conducting.

"I don't know about you, but I'm having a fantastic time," Costello told the crowd, adding that he's just caught a performance by veteran blues artist Hubert Sumlin across town at Antone's.

As the one-hour mark approached, many in the audience exited, no doubt to catch 1 a.m. sets at other venues, but those who stayed were handsomely rewarded. After playing such songs as "The Delivery Man," "Monkey to Man," "High Fidelity" and "Watching the Detectives," Costello could have ended the set to no one's dismay. But he continued pulling out new and old songs to keep the remaining audience reeling past 2 a.m.

Salon -

Extract -
It's amazing that the band can sound so tight even with the presence of
a wild card like mad-scientist keyboardist Steve Nieve, who keeps up a
steady barrage of fevered ornamentation and gloriously over-the-top
flourishes. That they do is largely thanks to Pete Thomas, one of the great rock
drummers of all time, with an amazing, jittery, ahead-of-the-beat feel
it's as if he's always rushing, but by some strange trick of space/time relativity, staying perfectly in time.

Even when the band played Costello hits from the '70s, the versions they
played were often radically reimagined, and always performed with passion
and ferocity and without pandering to the crowd. I was reminded of something Costello had said in his interview earlier in the day, that he was trying to make music without nostalgia. And it occurred to me that in all of his recent music, however bad some of it has been (and some of it has been very bad indeed), he's been succeeding at that not inconsiderable task. The only artists of comparable endurance and stature I could think of who have managed to keep their music so fiery, full of vitality and free of nostalgia, are Bob Dylan and Neil Young -- certainly rarefied company.

Austin Statesman -

Marrying a jazz musician has turned Elvis Costello into a new man. Back in the day, the guitarist-by-default considered his chops so lacking that he nicknamed himself L.H.C. — Little Hands of Concrete. But since hooking up with singer-pianist Diana Krall, he seems to have ferociously applied himself to his instrument. During Costello's two-plus hour gig at La Zona Rosa, he played solo after solo — most of them brief, but all of them respectable. During a long version of 1981's "Clubland," he actually played two solos — which is two more than he used to play in an entire show. (And one of them quoted Leonard Bernstein's "I Feel Pretty"!) Actually, there was a lot of everything; Costello and The Imposters (longtime Attractions Steve Naive and Pete Thomas on keyboards and drums and Davey Faragher on bass) whipped through 29 songs by my count. Many of them were from the band's recent, pretty good album, "The Delivery Man," though Costello wisely warmed up the crowd with two vintage favorites, "King's Horse" and "Uncomplicated."

It was the old semi-hits — "Radio, Radio," "Blame It On Cain," "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea," "Pump It Up," "Mystery Dance" and "High Fidelity" — that, predictably, got the most response from the audience. But when the show hit a lull at the mid-point, it was, unpredictably, the new "Monkey to Man," not the can't-miss "Watching the Detectives," that brought the show back to life. If the crowd occasionally seemed listless, though, the same couldn't be said for Costello and his stagemates. For a guy who's been doing this for three decades, he's admirably committed to his intention, declared earlier that day at the convention center, not to become an oldies act. His voice, which was a somewhat tentative instrument even when he was a young man, has taken on a surprising strength. Having gotten a lot of ill-advised crooning out of his system in the '90s, he's turned bracingly aggressive with his phrasing, which can veer from behind the beat to a Dylan-esque rush of words to a hoarse shout that would hold its own in front of a metal band.

The band was just as assertive, though less fluid — they hammered at almost every song as if it was "Pump It Up," as if they had decided to turn themselves into a Little Band of Concrete. This proved wearying after an hour or so, and you half suspected that they were trying so hard because the new songs, for the most part, aren't as good as the old ones. But give them credit — well after 1 a.m., when plenty of bands would be shutting down, Costello and the Imposters revved the crowd back up with a breathless near-medley of covers, old faves and new songs. They probably didn't convince anyone that "The Delivery Man" is another "Get Happy!!," but they probably convinced everyone that they might have another "Get Happy!!" in them.