CostelloNews.com

The Leicester Mercury -

From the moment Elvis Costello walked on stage in a suit, tie and silver winkle picker shoes, it looked like it was going to be a night to remember.

For two solid hours, he performed almost back to back songs from his extensive back catalogue and right up to his current album, the Delivery Man. No support band, and very few breaks between songs. Just two hours of solid Costello. I had known his reputation as a prolific songwriter, but I had no idea he was such as charismatic frontman and accomplished guitarist. Stagehands brought on and took off a dazzling array of guitars as Elvis ran through a set ranging from sometimes almost discordant jamming through to quiet, intimate, acoustic songs.

The best songs from his current album, including Country Darkness, Monkey to Man and the Delivery Man itself were met with considerable applause, while older songs, such as I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea, also provoked roars of approval. Old favourites Oliver's Army, Watching the Detectives and Pump It Up formed the climax of the show, before a final, quiet acoustic tune brought the show to a final close.

It was a stunning show from one of Britain's most talented songwriters.

Someone after the show said he was like the British Bruce Springsteen, and they were not far wrong.

BBC Nottingham -

The classic singles steal the show as Elvis Costello plays a 150 minute marathon.

"I didn't always play such salubrious venues…"

Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall, filled with a seated audience of smartly dressed middle-aged couples, is a long way off from Elvis Costello's semi-punk beginnings, three decades ago. But he didn't have so many songs back then.

The two and a half hour performance was non-stop; not even the countless guitar changes could hold up the proceedings.

Elvis and his Imposters (including the captivating Steve Nieve on keyboards) moved from fast-paced pop, to blues, to rock and roll, and to acoustic ballads with seemingly effortless precision.

Slow and bluesy new album, The Delivery Man, provided the bulk of the set, with Nothing Clings Like Ivy and Monkey To Man being the most memorable.

But the classic singles stole the show, which really got started four songs in with Radio Radio.

(I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea couldn't come too soon, actually getting the surprisingly subdued crowd to tap their feet.

The set closed on a high with an unforgettable combo of Shipbuilding, Peace, Love and Understanding and Oliver's Army, which would have been worth the ticket price alone.

And finally, demonstrating that his voice has lost no power over the years, part of new acoustic song The Scarlet Tide was performed beautifully without a microphone; transforming the grand venue into a picture of intimacy and moving the audience to a standing ovation.

Posted by at 2:43 PM | Permalink

Elvis Costello and The Imposters
The Tyne Theatre
Newcastle
England
May 30 '05

1. King Horse
2. Uncomplicated
3. Clown Strike
4. Radio Radio
5. Country Darkness
6. Needle Time - with a line from Yer Blues
7. Green Shirt
8. Human Hands
9. There's A Story In Your Voice
10. Either Side Of The Same Town
11. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
12. Clubland
13. Good Year For The Roses
14. Our Little Angel
15. Suit Of Lights
16. Kinder Murder
17. When I Was Cruel No. 2
18. Watching The Detectives
19. The Delivery Man/The Butcher's Boy
20. Monkey To Man
21. Bedlam
22. Shipbuilding
23. Man Out Of Time
24. Alison/Suspicious Minds
25. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
26. High Fidelity
27. You Really Got A Hold On Me
28. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?
29. Oliver's Army
30. Pump It Up
31. The Scarlet Tide

( Submitted by Andrew Brown )

Posted by at 2:14 PM | Permalink

Elvis has written a long account of the happenings leading up to and during his concert in Norwich , England last week. He started the show late because of a football match he wanted to watch on television .

Extract -

OK, for a short while things did go from bad to worse. Milan continued to cut through the Liverpool defence like a chainsaw through a bucket of ghee. By half-time the scoreboard read 3-0 and I felt a horrible repressed memory welling up from childhood: the morning in 1966 when the paper reported that Bill Shankly’s invincible Liverpool side had been crushed 5-1 . . . apparently by a team named after a famous household cleaner. Now this game was also turning into a humiliation too dreadful to witness. I decided to do the unthinkable and go on stage early.

During half-time, as my crew completed the final checks on our equipment, I fielded a commiserating call from my one friend who is Chelsea fan and a stricken text message from a pal in Istanbul. I began warming up my voice and tried to locate the most reverberant location backstage. This turned out to be the stairwell leading to the now deserted TV room. “Oh well,” I thought. “I might as well see the first few minutes of the second half.” I found that Didi Hamann was on the field, as he should have been at the start, and that Liverpool were on the ball, looking far more organised. I pulled up a chair just in time to witness Steven Gerrard’s magnificent header.

I affected a nonchalant air and strolled back downstairs to indulge in the strange rituals and superstitious practices that precede every performance. “Well, they’ve made it look a bit more respectable,” I said, to no one in particular, as crew members hurried by in every direction. My stage manager called out “five minutes” and I decided to use two of them by taking another quick peek at the screen. It couldn’t hurt.

A member of the university staff was the only person in front of the television. He had a startled look on his face. The score read “3-2”. I heard someone bellowing down the stairwell, “HOLD ON” . . . and it was me.

The crew quickly deserted the stage and burst into the room just as Gerrard burst into the box and was flattened. You could see from Alonso’s eyes that he wouldn’t put away the penalty but he is 23 and much quicker to the goalkeeper’s parry than Milan’s veteran defenders. Unbelievably, Liverpool had levelled the score in just over five minutes. The members of the Imposters (my band) now joined the television audience. Collectively they know as much about football as I know about lacrosse. However, they tolerate my football-related monologues with the indulgence of an elderly aunt humouring an eight-year-old attempting to explain the mythology of Star Wars. Soon they were swept up in the drama.

When a substitute was seen pacing the touchline, doing menacing neck rolls like a boxer in a title fight, Pete Thomas, the drummer, let out a comic shriek of “Who is THAT?” I was inspired to a ludicrous bout of deadly serious Motson-like myth-making. “That is Djibril Cissé and he has recovered from a career-threatening double fracture of his leg in record time and he is destined to win this competition.”

Our American bass player, Davey Faragher, remarked that, with his dyed yellow hair and strange tattoos, Cissé looked more like a character from a superhero comic strip. Frankly, if the commentator had told us that he was part-amphibian and had webbed feet, it would have seemed quite credible then. However, by the time the striker was introduced, Liverpool’s most talented playmaker, Gerrard, was filling in at right back and García and Alonso seemed too exhausted to lift the ball over the head of Jaap Stam, who would have otherwise been left in the dust by Cissé’s astonishing acceleration.

Normal time concluded without a conclusive result and we could delay the show no longer. Steve Nieve, the pianist, who had just had the rules explained to him, confidently predicted that Liverpool would prevail in any penalty shoot-out. An ominous rumbling finally penetrated our theatre of football. We approached the stage to the sound of a slow handclap and catcalls. The promoter had spent the second half cowering backstage rather than taking responsibility for any coherent announcement explaining the ongoing situation. This was left to one of my soundmen, who is an Arsenal fan, and you know how they like to lie doggo and then win with the last kick of the game.

I can’t say that our entrance to the stage was greeted with wild acclaim. The lights finally went down and the booing actually increased. The lights came up and at first glance the people of Norfolk seemed to be divided into two sub-groups. Those who like to eat biscuits and go to bed early after a little light jiving and a handful of the kind of untamed flatlanders who are sometimes portrayed in Seventies horror films brandishing flaming torches at a lynching.

It had been suggested by my Chelsea-supporting friend that I might further ingratiate myself with a Norwich crowd by echoing the recent emotional outburst of Delia Smith. So my opening remark was “Let’s be having you” and I promptly received a glass of water across the neck of my guitar.

Now I have had many things thrown at me over the years but none of them has been less terrifying than half a glass of lukewarm water. At least it could have been some beer, preferably still in the bottle. I’ve had people seriously intent on killing me, and not just in the late Seventies, when a man wasn’t dressed without a hatchet in his head at couple of our more lively gigs. As recently as “Woodstock 3” , in 1999, Nieve and I faced down what looked like an irate mob of method actors auditioning for a remake of Apocalypse Now. Once the audience have their faces painted green and twigs in their hair, you know you are in deep trouble. Those crazy kids seemed to want to maim us for no other reason than that we were older than them. They were throwing full cans of lite beer and Diet Coke at us, but we pressed on regardless and managed to get out of town unscathed before they started to enact any of the more grisly scenes from Lord of the Flies.

Back in Norwich, it started to become apparent that some people had not got the message about the late start. The drunk who threw his glass of water was ejected by security but not before I identified him, in strictly literal terms, as “a tosser”, along with a couple of other adjectives that might have offended some Daily Mail readers, even if they are not usually that prominent at my shows, because I hate their guts. The offender was promptly taken outside and beaten to a pulp . . . by his girlfriend, who was angry about missing the show.

Once we got rolling, the boisterous start gave a different flavour to the show, although the Imposters played with their customary swagger and panache, not unlike the Liverpool team of the Hansen/Dalglish era. I tried my best to keep my eyes from the TV screen over the bar at the back of the room but the words “Oh s***, he’s missed” might have accidentally crept into the lyrics of Good Year for the Roses .

And suddenly it was all over. I could see people in the bar area punching the air and a rolling cheer overwhelmed the applause for Kinder Murder. Our security man, Paddy Callaghan, capered in the shadows at the edge of the stage with a balletic grace that belies his frame and this was all the confirmation I needed to cue You’ll Never Walk Alone, a song that we had never performed before as a band.

The audience took up the anthem like a mini-Kop and saluted the Liverpool victory with the massed illumination of their mobile phones. It was a bizarre and moving sight. I managed to make only a couple of football-related dedications during the rest of the two-hour set. I’m not sure that Benítez would really appreciate The Delivery Man but you can guess what I meant by it. We had already played I don’t want to go to Chelsea, so I couldn’t dedicate that one to Gerrard but we did end with The Scarlet Tide.

The next day I had to check the headlines to see that it wasn’t all some kind of crazy dream. Liverpool made the first edition and our antics made the late night final after a couple of “Angry of West Runton”-type people decided to get their names in the paper. Our promoter demanded £400 to compensate for the 16 souls who had asked for their money back, the cheap swine. He’s never had more publicity in his life. On the other hand, I was happy to offer free tickets for our next Norfolk show, if such a thing should ever occur, in the event that a ticket-holder had to catch the last bus home or relieve a baby-sitter.

Fretting while the scarlet tide make history
By Elvis Costello

I WAS ON A NARROW ROAD THROUGH ancient woodland when the awful news came over a crackling connection: “He’s left out Hamann and he’s playing Kewell!” My heart sank. I knew we were doomed. Minutes later I arrived at the University of East Anglia, where I have played concerts since 1977. I was booked to perform just as Liverpool were taking the field in their first European Cup final in 20 years.

I had tried everything to re-schedule the concert, remembering what Paul McGrath had once told me about an Albanian trip with Ireland: “I might pull a hamstring . . .” I had suggested a teatime show or even a late-night show but the best we could manage was to announce through the local radio and newspapers that the start would be delayed until the end of the 90 minutes. This way I would still have sufficient time for a complete set. I had remained quietly confident that it would not take very long for Liverpool to subdue an overconfident AC Milan. That was until I heard the team news.

Now I thought it might possibly require extra time. If so, I would have to get on stage and face the unusual torture of having the score relayed to me by semaphore or hand-printed cards. The last time we attempted this was in Glasgow during the infamous Michael Thomas game at Anfield in 1989. I played the longest song in my repertoire, while keeping my gaze from the wings, knowing that by the time I finished the tune, with the score at “0-1”, Liverpool would be champions. As the applause began, I looked round to see my stage manager holding up “0-2”.

The travelling musician often ends up following an important game in unlikely circumstances, listening to the World Service via an aerial hung from the curtains in a Hamburg hotel, or maybe that was in Nagoya. Then there was the 7am rendezvous in the “The Mad Dog in the Fog” pub in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, for Liverpool’s Cantona-inspired defeat in the FA Cup Final of 1996 and realising that Ray Davies, of the Kinks, was sitting at the next table. Perhaps, more pertinently, there is the memory of staying up all night in Australia to watch the broadcast of Bruce Grobbelaar’s “Spaghetti Legs” defeat of AS Roma in 1984.

So, in contrast, a large-screen TV in a university common room was an unimaginable joy. Then the game started. The absence of Hamann was immediately felt as no one picked up Maldini, even though his powerful downward half-volley might have been saved by a goalkeeper who had been on the park for more than 50 seconds. Things went rapidly downhill. Players who had performed superbly during the season — or at least when they hadn’ t been confined to the treatment table — such as Xabi Alonso and Luis García, looked like boys against Milan’s men. Liverpool’s most improved player of the season, Djimi Traoré, was suddenly returned to the nervous and accident-prone form that he had shown under Gérard Houllier.

At 23 minutes, with the midfield being totally overrun and the Reds’ usually resolute defence looking vulnerable, Rafael Benítez’s big gamble finally paid off: Kewell pulled up. Now, Australian Harry may be a very fine human being but he has the misfortune of appearing to many fans as the epitome of the spoilt modern footballer who places his agent’s agenda ahead of that of the club.

The commentator reported that Kewell had “asked” to come off. In Liverpool folklore you do not ask to come off in a final . . . or any game, unless you are dead. For heaven’s sake, Gerry Byrne played 117 minutes of the 1965 FA Cup Final with a broken collarbone and still managed to set up one of the goals. In 1956 Bert Trautmann, the former German PoW and Manchester City goalie, played in the Cup Final with a broken neck. Did he complain or ask to be taken off? Did he heck. They didn’t even discover his injury until three days after the game.

Then there is the matter of the “Alice” band. At the risk of sounding like a fogey reminiscing about the good old days, I honestly cannot remember “Sir” Roger Hunt, the legendary Liverpool striker, ever sporting one of these accessories. Even an Evertonian wouldn’t wear one. If big Duncan Ferguson grew his hair down to his knees, it is inconceivable that he would ever pace the Goodison dressing-room saying, “Wee man, does this make me look harder or just like a bit of a Jessie?” There doesn’t even seem to be any discernible benefit in wearing the “Alice”. Milan Baros has sported one all season and he still cannot find the goal.

OK, for a short while things did go from bad to worse. Milan continued to cut through the Liverpool defence like a chainsaw through a bucket of ghee. By half-time the scoreboard read 3-0 and I felt a horrible repressed memory welling up from childhood: the morning in 1966 when the paper reported that Bill Shankly’s invincible Liverpool side had been crushed 5-1 . . . apparently by a team named after a famous household cleaner. Now this game was also turning into a humiliation too dreadful to witness. I decided to do the unthinkable and go on stage early.

During half-time, as my crew completed the final checks on our equipment, I fielded a commiserating call from my one friend who is Chelsea fan and a stricken text message from a pal in Istanbul. I began warming up my voice and tried to locate the most reverberant location backstage. This turned out to be the stairwell leading to the now deserted TV room. “Oh well,” I thought. “I might as well see the first few minutes of the second half.” I found that Didi Hamann was on the field, as he should have been at the start, and that Liverpool were on the ball, looking far more organised. I pulled up a chair just in time to witness Steven Gerrard’s magnificent header.

I affected a nonchalant air and strolled back downstairs to indulge in the strange rituals and superstitious practices that precede every performance. “Well, they’ve made it look a bit more respectable,” I said, to no one in particular, as crew members hurried by in every direction. My stage manager called out “five minutes” and I decided to use two of them by taking another quick peek at the screen. It couldn’t hurt.

A member of the university staff was the only person in front of the television. He had a startled look on his face. The score read “3-2”. I heard someone bellowing down the stairwell, “HOLD ON” . . . and it was me.

The crew quickly deserted the stage and burst into the room just as Gerrard burst into the box and was flattened. You could see from Alonso’s eyes that he wouldn’t put away the penalty but he is 23 and much quicker to the goalkeeper’s parry than Milan’s veteran defenders. Unbelievably, Liverpool had levelled the score in just over five minutes. The members of the Imposters (my band) now joined the television audience. Collectively they know as much about football as I know about lacrosse. However, they tolerate my football-related monologues with the indulgence of an elderly aunt humouring an eight-year-old attempting to explain the mythology of Star Wars. Soon they were swept up in the drama.

When a substitute was seen pacing the touchline, doing menacing neck rolls like a boxer in a title fight, Pete Thomas, the drummer, let out a comic shriek of “Who is THAT?” I was inspired to a ludicrous bout of deadly serious Motson-like myth-making. “That is Djibril Cissé and he has recovered from a career-threatening double fracture of his leg in record time and he is destined to win this competition.”

Our American bass player, Davey Faragher, remarked that, with his dyed yellow hair and strange tattoos, Cissé looked more like a character from a superhero comic strip. Frankly, if the commentator had told us that he was part-amphibian and had webbed feet, it would have seemed quite credible then. However, by the time the striker was introduced, Liverpool’s most talented playmaker, Gerrard, was filling in at right back and García and Alonso seemed too exhausted to lift the ball over the head of Jaap Stam, who would have otherwise been left in the dust by Cissé’s astonishing acceleration.

Normal time concluded without a conclusive result and we could delay the show no longer. Steve Nieve, the pianist, who had just had the rules explained to him, confidently predicted that Liverpool would prevail in any penalty shoot-out. An ominous rumbling finally penetrated our theatre of football. We approached the stage to the sound of a slow handclap and catcalls. The promoter had spent the second half cowering backstage rather than taking responsibility for any coherent announcement explaining the ongoing situation. This was left to one of my soundmen, who is an Arsenal fan, and you know how they like to lie doggo and then win with the last kick of the game.

I can’t say that our entrance to the stage was greeted with wild acclaim. The lights finally went down and the booing actually increased. The lights came up and at first glance the people of Norfolk seemed to be divided into two sub-groups. Those who like to eat biscuits and go to bed early after a little light jiving and a handful of the kind of untamed flatlanders who are sometimes portrayed in Seventies horror films brandishing flaming torches at a lynching.

It had been suggested by my Chelsea-supporting friend that I might further ingratiate myself with a Norwich crowd by echoing the recent emotional outburst of Delia Smith. So my opening remark was “Let’s be having you” and I promptly received a glass of water across the neck of my guitar.

Now I have had many things thrown at me over the years but none of them has been less terrifying than half a glass of lukewarm water. At least it could have been some beer, preferably still in the bottle. I’ve had people seriously intent on killing me, and not just in the late Seventies, when a man wasn’t dressed without a hatchet in his head at couple of our more lively gigs. As recently as “Woodstock 3” , in 1999, Nieve and I faced down what looked like an irate mob of method actors auditioning for a remake of Apocalypse Now. Once the audience have their faces painted green and twigs in their hair, you know you are in deep trouble. Those crazy kids seemed to want to maim us for no other reason than that we were older than them. They were throwing full cans of lite beer and Diet Coke at us, but we pressed on regardless and managed to get out of town unscathed before they started to enact any of the more grisly scenes from Lord of the Flies.

Back in Norwich, it started to become apparent that some people had not got the message about the late start. The drunk who threw his glass of water was ejected by security but not before I identified him, in strictly literal terms, as “a tosser”, along with a couple of other adjectives that might have offended some Daily Mail readers, even if they are not usually that prominent at my shows, because I hate their guts. The offender was promptly taken outside and beaten to a pulp . . . by his girlfriend, who was angry about missing the show.

Once we got rolling, the boisterous start gave a different flavour to the show, although the Imposters played with their customary swagger and panache, not unlike the Liverpool team of the Hansen/Dalglish era. I tried my best to keep my eyes from the TV screen over the bar at the back of the room but the words “Oh s***, he’s missed” might have accidentally crept into the lyrics of Good Year for the Roses .

And suddenly it was all over. I could see people in the bar area punching the air and a rolling cheer overwhelmed the applause for Kinder Murder. Our security man, Paddy Callaghan, capered in the shadows at the edge of the stage with a balletic grace that belies his frame and this was all the confirmation I needed to cue You’ll Never Walk Alone, a song that we had never performed before as a band.

The audience took up the anthem like a mini-Kop and saluted the Liverpool victory with the massed illumination of their mobile phones. It was a bizarre and moving sight. I managed to make only a couple of football-related dedications during the rest of the two-hour set. I’m not sure that Benítez would really appreciate The Delivery Man but you can guess what I meant by it. We had already played I don’t want to go to Chelsea, so I couldn’t dedicate that one to Gerrard but we did end with The Scarlet Tide.

The next day I had to check the headlines to see that it wasn’t all some kind of crazy dream. Liverpool made the first edition and our antics made the late night final after a couple of “Angry of West Runton”-type people decided to get their names in the paper. Our promoter demanded £400 to compensate for the 16 souls who had asked for their money back, the cheap swine. He’s never had more publicity in his life. On the other hand, I was happy to offer free tickets for our next Norfolk show, if such a thing should ever occur, in the event that a ticket-holder had to catch the last bus home or relieve a baby-sitter.

Now I’ve seen kids wearing Liverpool shirts everywhere from Addis Ababa to Anfield and maybe, years from now, some of them may be able to reel off the names of this team, as I can still recite Lawrence, Lawler, Byrne, Strong, Yeats, Stevenson, Callaghan, Hunt, St John, Smith and Thompson. If so, they should start with the name of Jamie Carragher, even though Jerzy Dudek was the hero of the shoot-out.

Or maybe it will be another glorious trail that leads nowhere, like Houllier’s treble-winning season in 2001. Still, I wouldn’t trade that famous afternoon in Cardiff or one insane evening in Dortmund any more than all the Liverpool fans in Istanbul and around the world — which still includes Norwich, when I last checked — are ever likely forget last Wednesday night.

Bill Shankly’s famous aphorism, “Football isn’t a matter of life and death. It’s much more important than that”, was made macabre by a shameful night in Belgium 20 years ago and utterly stripped of its almost innocent power to inspire by the terrible crimes surrounding the Hillsborough disaster. Some of those crimes were committed with words in newsprint and they should never be forgotten or forgiven.

Football may not be more important than life and death but this match unexpectedly proved that, despite the greed, vanity and vile bigotry that lurks within and sometimes overwhelms the game today, it can still be magical, confounding and create a dramatic scenario that would be rejected as too fantastic if written as sports fiction. For those two hours or so it was certainly more important than rock and roll and getting to bed early.

Posted by at 5:00 PM | Permalink

Elvis Costello and The Imposters
Birmingham Symphony Hall
Birmingham
England
May 29 '05

1 Welcome to the working week
2 Uncomplicated
3 45
4 Radio radio
5 Country darkness
6 Needle time
7 Shabby Doll
8 Brilliant Mistake
9 Human Hands
10 Either side of the same town
11 (I don't want to go to) Chelsea
12 Radio silence
13 Good year for the roses
14 Our little angel
15 Tonight the bottle let me down
16 Almost blue
17 Complicated shadows
18 When I was cruel # 2
19 Watching the detectives
20 The Delivery Man
21 The Butcher's Boy [Trad.]
22 Monkey to man
23 Don't lose your grip on love [Brinsley Schwartz]
24 Alison
25 Suspicious minds
26 Mystery Dance
27 Why don't you love me (like you used to do)
28 I can't stand up (for falling down)
29 High fidelity
30 You really got a hold on me [William "Smokey" Robinson]
31 (What's so funny 'bout) Peace, love and understanding ?
32 Oliver's army
33 Pump it up
34 The Scarlet tide

( Submitted by Eamonn Singer)

Posted by at 1:54 AM | Permalink

If I had a dollar (or $19.95) for every book I bought because of a single page or two of Costello content, I'd have a huge pile of money instead of the massive bookshelf sitting in front of me. But now Google Print lets me just read these pages (print them even) front dozens or hundreds of books with Elvis inside. Check it out.

Posted by at 4:55 PM | Permalink

Elvis Costello and The Imposters
Royal Centre
Nottingham
England
May 26 '05

1 Blue Chair
2 Uncomplicated
3 45
4 Welcome to the working week
5 Radio radio
6 Country darkness
7 Needle time
8 Shabby Doll
9 Temptation
10 The name of this thing is not love
11 Either side of the same town
12 (I don't want to go to) Chelsea
13 Sulky girl
14 Our little angel
15 Toledo
16 Tart
17 Almost blue
18 Nothing clings like Ivy
19 Complicated shadows
20 When I was cruel # 2
21 Watching the detectives
22 The Delivery Man
23 Monkey to man
24 Accidents will happen
25 There's a story in your voice
26 Man out of time
27 Shipbuilding
28 Hurry down doomsday (the bugs are taking over)
29 What's so funny 'bout Peace, love and understanding ?
30 Oliver's army
31 Beyond belief
32 Riot act
33 The Scarlet tide

( Submitted by Eamonn Singer)

Posted by at 2:41 PM | Permalink

Elvis' H.C. Andersen songcycle "The Secret Arias" gets a special advanced opening on the main stage at the new Royal Opera House in Copenhagen, October 8 & 9 2005.

The performers on stage will be Elvis, Steve Nieve, Bebe Risenfors and soprano Gisela Stille.

The show will be in two parts. First part with known Costello songs related to the nights theme. Second part; the new songcycle "The secret arias".

In the season 2006/2007 the songcycle will open on the secondary stage at the opera.

( Submitted by VonOfterdingen)

Posted by at 2:39 PM | Permalink

Emmylou Harris talks about Elvis -

( extract)

Of course I've known Elvis, not well, but over the years. We were talking about a country show we did years ago in the Valley in California - the club's not even around anymore and as far as we know the show didn't even air. George Jones was on it and he was on it, and Elvis was talking about how he had the mumps. (Laughs.) And I remember that show. And more recently he was kind enough to do our Concerts for a Landmine Free World overseas about three years ago. Besides his voice, his songwriting, energy and his passion for his work and for everything, it was just delightful to spend time with him on those tours.

And then he asked me to sing on the record. I was very happy to do it. I just loved the songs and was also very happy that he was doing The Scarlet Tide, which is one of those new songs that came along that you sort of went, "How come I didn't know about that song?" (Laughs.) The words are so heartbreaking and the melody is so gorgeous. So that was just a wonderful day in the studio.

He presented me as a present a 40-gigabyte iPod that he had programmed with every kind of music available and a little pair of speakers. I call it the Elvis Shuffle. I just put it on shuffle and I never know what's going to happen. I put it on and I listen to it at night on low volume and I will wake up sometimes at like 4 in the morning to Desolation Row and I'll be brought up just enough, and then I'll wake up to some other wonderful old blues track. Or then there will be some jazz, or just beautiful piano sonatas. It was just the most extraordinary gift.

( Submitted by Martin Foyle)

Emmylou Harris: stumbling with a purpose
The artist started as a backup singer before turning soloist, songwriter and collaborator, connecting with an ever-widening audience.
By BRIAN ORLOFF
Published May 26, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anybody familiar with country luminary Emmylou Harris' peerless pipes will see the unintended irony in the title of her most recent album, 2003's Stumble Into Grace.

Harris' connection to American music has been indelible since she emerged singing backup in the early '70s for Gram Parsons. It is as a solo artist, an interpreter of other musicians' material and, most recently, as a songwriter herself, that Harris continues to challenge herself and earn critical praise. Known for her pure voice, the musical equivalent of silk, Harris, 58, is certainly not stumbling into anything. She is soaring into maturity, and her career continues to flourish.

Apart from her solo work, Harris is a much sought-after guest vocalist. In the past year she has crossed the musical spectrum, adding deep emotion and authority to the fragile-sounding songs of young indie rock hero Conor Oberst (who records as Bright Eyes) and joining veteran genre-hopper Elvis Costello on his latest album, The Delivery Man.

Harris, who will perform Friday night at the Tampa Theatre, plans to release an album next year, and recently wrote and recorded with folkies Kate and Anna McGarrigle, with whom she also worked on Stumble Into Grace.

Calling recently from her hotel room in New York, a thoughtful Harris talked about how she maintains creative control, her recording sessions with Oberst and Costello, and maturing in the music industry.

You've been doing more songwriting on the last two records. How have you grown as a songwriter?
Well, just the fact that I've started doing it was a huge leap - more than one song on an album, I didn't even have that. Certainly I made a quantum leap with (2000's) Red Dirt Girl and then followed it up with the next record. I'm not so sure with the next one. I actually have some covers that I'm quite anxious to try - but I do want to try and write some songs. Right now I'm thinking that the next record will be a combination of self-written songs and covers. But I'm not in a hurry because I've actually got a record that Mark Knopfler and I have recorded that's going to come out next year.

What does it mean to you to sing on somebody else's record?
It's great to be asked, and it's always usually really interesting and enjoyable. You get turned on to other people's music. Like Conor Oberst - I was sort of aware of him. But you really get down into it when you're singing those lyrics and you're immersing yourself in those melodies, and find out what their thing is all about. Basically you're like another instrument that is adding to what you're doing. It's a good way to listen and get turned on to music, pretty much first hand.

You mentioned Oberst. What do you think about his music? He's being called his generation's Bob Dylan by some critics.
The music is not as structured as the school I come from. But this is how music changes when it comes through people who are creative and think outside the lines, color outside the lines. It's just really important that people do that. It's obvious that he's incredibly sincere and connected to what he's doing. That's always inspiring to be around that.

Did you think about the fact that you were singing for people who may never have been exposed to you before?

You mean (did I) realize that this fellow is younger than my children? (Laughs.) Yes. It's kind of interesting but to me music is timeless and so it's all part of a continuum. But it is interesting to think that might be the only way that anyone would have ever heard of me. Because I understand that my audience is fiercely loyal but by pop music standards probably small. It's nice when the generations can communicate and come together all because we have a love of music, a love of being affected by that particular art form. It's a language that we all share even though we all have a different dialect.

Talk about working with Elvis Costello. You two have a bit of a history together, I believe.
Of course I've known Elvis, not well, but over the years. We were talking about a country show we did years ago in the Valley in California - the club's not even around anymore and as far as we know the show didn't even air. George Jones was on it and he was on it, and Elvis was talking about how he had the mumps. (Laughs.) And I remember that show. And more recently he was kind enough to do our Concerts for a Landmine Free World overseas about three years ago. Besides his voice, his songwriting, energy and his passion for his work and for everything, it was just delightful to spend time with him on those tours.

And then he asked me to sing on the record. I was very happy to do it. I just loved the songs and was also very happy that he was doing The Scarlet Tide, which is one of those new songs that came along that you sort of went, "How come I didn't know about that song?" (Laughs.) The words are so heartbreaking and the melody is so gorgeous. So that was just a wonderful day in the studio.

He presented me as a present a 40-gigabyte iPod that he had programmed with every kind of music available and a little pair of speakers. I call it the Elvis Shuffle. I just put it on shuffle and I never know what's going to happen. I put it on and I listen to it at night on low volume and I will wake up sometimes at like 4 in the morning to Desolation Row and I'll be brought up just enough, and then I'll wake up to some other wonderful old blues track. Or then there will be some jazz, or just beautiful piano sonatas. It was just the most extraordinary gift.

A lot of people have been talking about the title of your latest album. Are you trying to say something about maturing into your role in the business?
The thing about albums and songwriting, I feel almost like I'm a vessel for things that are coming for me, so you don't always know exactly where you're headed. I think that's why the title was so apropos on so many levels. But Stumble Into Grace, I think we do stumble into it. There's some old Sufi saying, something like, "The thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, but only seekers find it." Just the act of searching is sometimes the end in itself. And so really you just put one foot in front of the other and keep going. And there you are.

PREVIEW
Emmylou Harris, 8 p.m. Friday, Tampa Theatre, 711 Franklin St., Tampa. $38.50. (813) 274-8981.

© Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved

Posted by at 2:31 PM | Permalink

A fan reports -

I was chatting to EC's lighting engineer after the Nottingham gig last night. Apparently, EC is touring next year (2006) with Steve and an orchestra and the Honolulu date looks like part of that tour. My information is that EC will undertake an Asian and Australasian tour taking in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India, Malaysia, the Phillipines, Taiwan and Honolulu. (Yes, India).

The format will be more jazz oriented than has been the case in recent years with the Imposters. On some dates they'll play part of Il sogno as the first half of the concert ! If you're really lucky he'll do highlights from North in the second half !! There appear to be no plans to bring this tour to Europe.

Posted by at 2:25 PM | Permalink

EDP 24 ( Norwich) reports -

Elvis has never recognised musical divides or boundaries and his 30-year career has been all the richer for it.

But for all the twists and turns he has taken, he has never forsaken the pop road.

I saw him play a memorable gig at the UEA in 1984 and have since seen him grace the Royal Albert Hall, the London Palladium, the Olympia Theatre in Dublin and numerous other fine venues. That this unexpected show at the UEA failed to sell out is indicative of the complete disinterest many of his older fans have shown in his recent classical releases.

Those who did turn out were treated to a night of tense drama and celebration.

With his beloved Liverpool having fought back from 3-0 down to 3-3 and take the game into extra time, Costello dutifully took to the stage shortly after 9.30 as requested.

Amid some boos, he launched into the first track from his debut album Welcome to the Working Week and got a drink hurled over him for his troubles.

While some of the audience remained glued to television screens around the venue, Costello ploughed on, delving deep into his past to play such material as Less than Zero, I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea, A Good year for the Roses and Club Land.

When it got to penalties Costello was ominously in the middle of Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down and followed that with A Kinder Murder.

Fortunately, these titles proved inapt and after the crowd let him in on the secret that Liverpool had indeed conquered Europe he seamlessly went into You'll Never Walk Alone, accompanied by the entire crowd.

For the celebration? He opted for an electrifying rendition of Mystery Dance and another gem from his country album Almost Blue, Why Don't You Love Me Like You Used to Do?

Late arrivals were all forgotten.

...well , not by all..........

Outraged fans walked out in disgust last night after Elvis Costello arrived on stage several hours late because he was watching the football.

He then shouted abuse at the audience and deliberately played badly.

The avid Liverpool fan had arrived on stage at the UEA at 9.40pm because he tried to catch the Champions League final on television.

Many fans had been waiting for him since 7.30pm and so when he received a hostile reaction from fans, he proceeded to shout abuse at them and under perform.

Andrew Milnes, of Wood Street, Norwich, was outraged. He said:

"At first I balked at the £25 tickets to see Elvis Costello at the UEA, but he was, after all, a hero of my youth, having written, produced and sung some of the greatest material of the late seventies.

"The tickets stated there was no support band so we arrived early and took up a good front-of-stage position. Then we heard the rumour that he was watching the football and he was.

"A support band was given the unenviable task of soothing an increasingly hostile crowd. When Elvis eventually daned to appear at 9.40pm there was loud booing.

"His reaction to this was to hurl abuse and play loudly, not very grown up, but more importantly, not very good.

"Great as he is, Elvis is not a guitar hero and this stint earned him a soaking with water from a fan.

"His band the Imposters probably knocked back by the hostile reaction, played like amateurs, the crowd knew the material better than they did and could probably have played it better too.

"The whole thing seemed to be done on the cheap and at £25 a ticket, that's not good enough."

Malca Schotten, from Norwich, was also in the audience. She said: "Some of us had been there since 7.30pm and didn't realise he was going to be late, so we were annoyed to say the least.

"Although there were some people shouting and throwing things, most people were polite.

"His reaction was completely over the top. He was swearing and gesturing to the crowd, showing a complete lack of respect - I don't care how famous you are, you should respect your fans.

"I paid £50 to take my sister for her birthday, I've always wanted to see him live and was really looking forward to it.

"His behaviour was disgusting and we were the first to walk out and plenty of people followed."

To which Elvis responded -

"I suppose there might have been a handful of people who didn't get the message that it was going to be a late show but after the audience had been treated to an excellent performance by a fine young local band – David K and The Defendants. The Imposters and I took the stage just after 9.30pm and played a non-stop two-hour set that seemed to be enjoyed by almost one and all.

The laughable expression of hostility from a cowardly drink-hurling drunk was countered with some comedic banter that a few timid souls seem to have mistaken for genuine aggression. They have clearly never witnessed a serious confrontation. This disruptive twerp was rightly and forcefully ejected from the premises although it may not have escaped his notice that the singer was holding a large plank of wood in his hand throughout the show.

Far from resenting the sporting background to the evening, the majority of the audience happily joined in an emotional and enthusiastic rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone, saluting the Liverpool victory with the massed illumination of their mobile phones.

Perhaps the 14 people who did ask for their money back are not allowed to stay out late at rock and roll shows. Or maybe they would be better suited to staying at home, reading their Delia Smith cookbooks over a nice cup of Horlicks while listening to their K-Tel collection of a Punk Rock Classic.

Obviously, if some of those asking for refunds simply had a late bus to catch then we extend our apologies for any confusion and inconvenience. They should contact us with adequate proof of purchase and we will arrange for them to receive guest tickets for our next Norfolk appearance.

Up The Reds and good luck to the Canaries with their push for promotion."

Posted by at 2:12 PM | Permalink

The Daily Telegraph reports -

He started out as an angry young Liverpudlian and matured pricklishly through the more disciplined schools of jazz, country, lounge, blues and classical music, the man who strode out on to the stage of Leicester's De Montfort Hall was that curious entity: a precision punk.

Frowning down at his instrument with the contorted concentration of a concert pianist slamming into a Rachmaninov concerto, and jerking his guitar with the high-octane energy of a teenager, Elvis Costello goes from 0-60 faster than any other live performer of his peer group. Sparked up without introduction, his opening section struck the flint of favourites such as Radio Radio against the more polished steel of the blues-based Country Darkness from his new album, The Delivery Man.

His audience were initially less sure of themselves. There was no clear consensus on how those who once pogoed sweatily to the bespectacled beat should move in middle age.

They crossed their arms uncomfortably, consoling themselves with the odd shell-shocked spasm before self-consciousness kicked in.

Not normally one for reminiscences, Costello remembered an early visit to Leicester with a Stiff Records collective, when the acts were plied backstage with dubious cooked meats and rancid pork pies, most of which later reappeared on stage. "I won't forget the sight of that piece of boiled ham hanging from the frame of my glasses," he smirked.

Through it all, the marvel was how Costello's vocals could veer from enraged splutter to cool croon. The crowd swayed like solemn metronomes through Shipbuilding. Younger audience members, who might have been more familiar with Suede's cover version, seemed hypnotised by the less histrionic, harder-hitting emotion of the real thing.

And as Costello stepped slowly back from the microphone, conjuring that lost dream of "diving for pearls" in the dimming light, there was a gradual, communal exhalation and a hush that swelled over several seconds before being ruptured by applause.

Having stomped their way with him through the obligatory Pump It Up and (the crowd finally shakes it loose) Oliver's Army, his band the Imposters took a back seat for the reflective, lo-fi finale The Scarlet Tide, the "anti-fear" anthem, co-written with T Bone Burnett, which concludes The Delivery Man.

On that album, Costello muses on the nature of a "burnt out filament / flies still buzzing around the bulb". And although the spectating flies did more nervous twitching than real buzzing in Leicester, Costello proved he can still fire up the full wattage.

The Daily Telegraph

High-octane Elvis can still fire up the full wattage
(Filed: 25/05/2005)

Helen Brown reviews Elvis Costello at De Montfort Hall, Leicester

He started out as an angry young Liverpudlian and matured pricklishly through the more disciplined schools of jazz, country, lounge, blues and classical music, the man who strode out on to the stage of Leicester's De Montfort Hall was that curious entity: a precision punk.

Frowning down at his instrument with the contorted concentration of a concert pianist slamming into a Rachmaninov concerto, and jerking his guitar with the high-octane energy of a teenager, Elvis Costello goes from 0-60 faster than any other live performer of his peer group. Sparked up without introduction, his opening section struck the flint of favourites such as Radio Radio against the more polished steel of the blues-based Country Darkness from his new album, The Delivery Man.

His audience were initially less sure of themselves. There was no clear consensus on how those who once pogoed sweatily to the bespectacled beat should move in middle age.

They crossed their arms uncomfortably, consoling themselves with the odd shell-shocked spasm before self-consciousness kicked in.

Not normally one for reminiscences, Costello remembered an early visit to Leicester with a Stiff Records collective, when the acts were plied backstage with dubious cooked meats and rancid pork pies, most of which later reappeared on stage. "I won't forget the sight of that piece of boiled ham hanging from the frame of my glasses," he smirked.

Through it all, the marvel was how Costello's vocals could veer from enraged splutter to cool croon. The crowd swayed like solemn metronomes through Shipbuilding. Younger audience members, who might have been more familiar with Suede's cover version, seemed hypnotised by the less histrionic, harder-hitting emotion of the real thing.

And as Costello stepped slowly back from the microphone, conjuring that lost dream of "diving for pearls" in the dimming light, there was a gradual, communal exhalation and a hush that swelled over several seconds before being ruptured by applause.

Having stomped their way with him through the obligatory Pump It Up and (the crowd finally shakes it loose) Oliver's Army, his band the Imposters took a back seat for the reflective, lo-fi finale The Scarlet Tide, the "anti-fear" anthem, co-written with T Bone Burnett, which concludes The Delivery Man.

On that album, Costello muses on the nature of a "burnt out filament / flies still buzzing around the bulb". And although the spectating flies did more nervous twitching than real buzzing in Leicester, Costello proved he can still fire up the full wattage.

Posted by at 4:34 PM | Permalink

Armed Forces (33 1/3)
by FRANKLIN BRUNO

Paperback: 151 pages
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (May 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN: 0826416748

This book is just bursting with fascinating information. Time has allowed me to only have a flick through it . However I found myself repeatedly going ' Of course , how did I miss that before'.

Bruno has really done his homework. Greil Marcus gave him the complete tapes of his 1982 interview with Elvis and so we get a lot of previously unpublished quotes . Engineer/co-producer Roger Bechirian gave him an interview in Oct.04. The notes from the various re-issues are considered - and queried - where necessary.

The books layout is interesting. Over the 151 pages he hops from aspect to aspect. The songs , the allusions , the sleeve designer , the recording , the musicians , the microphones used in the studio ( a Beyer Soundstar ) .....and Columbus, Ohio. The events of April 15, 1979 are referred to over and over again. Quotes , old and new , from nearly all the participants help give the most complete account I've seen. However his reference to the New York press conference two weeks later , where Elvis tried to explain his comments, mentions that a transcript of same exists , citing the Uncut feature as one source. Extensive as that feature was I hope he actually heard a sound recording of same. To remind myself this evening I played back the same recording , looking at Allan Jones transcript/commentary. Repeatedly Jones edites out asides and gives emotive descriptions to tones of questioning that are just not evident to my ears. True Elvis does himself few favours but it is not the disaster Jones describes.

That aside some astonishing connections are made. From Tiny Steps to Abandoned Masquerade on Ms Krall's album for one. And many , many others.

Needless to say , it should be read with album itself playing.

Get it, try it.

Posted by at 6:44 PM | Permalink

The New York Times comments -

As Elvis Costello kicked into ''Chemistry Class,'' at a live performance in Washington, on Feb. 28, 1978, a voice could be heard cutting through the boisterous crowd noise, shouting, ''You're brilliant!'' Enthusiastic, uninhibited, barely articulate and kind of embarrassing -- that's a real fan. This performance can be heard on Costello's ''Armed Forces.'' Not on the original album, from 1979, or the expanded CD version reissued by Rykodisc in 1993, but on a superexpanded version put out by Rhino Records in 2002. Since 2001, Rhino has released lavish, double-disc reissues of most of the Costello catalog, basically finishing up last month with a rerelease of the 1987 record ''King of America.''

In many cases these are the third or fourth iterations of a given album, and it turns out that at least some consumers will buy them a third or fourth time. ''We sort of count on that,'' says Jeff White, a spokesman for Rhino, a division of the Warner Music Group that specializes in reissues, including ''deluxe'' editions of previously released records by everyone from the Cure to Randy Newman to Cher. The most successful rerelease in the Costello series has been ''My Aim Is True,'' which has sold more than 100,000 copies, despite having been released in at least three earlier versions.

Gary Stewart, who oversaw Rhino's Costello project (and has since left the label to serve as the chief music officer for Apple's iTunes), says he believes that plenty of buyers of the new discs are getting them for the first time. Nevertheless, it's fairly clear as he describes the strategy for the discs that the superfan was definitely part of the calculus. ''The Ryko versions are quite good,'' he says, so the Rhino round included maximum-length 28-page booklets stuffed with lyrics and new notes from Costello himself, and a pile-on of previously unreleased tracks. ''Get Happy,'' for instance, was a 20-song album; the Ryko version had 30 songs; Rhino's has 50. The idea was to give the buyer so much material, Stewart says, that ''the stuff you already had is just a bonus.''

Stewart says Rhino also made a particular effort at ''rehabilitating'' the less-celebrated Costello records, like ''Goodbye, Cruel World'' (which even Costello was once quoted dismissing as ''a waste'') in selecting bonus material and alternate versions that practically add up to a whole new, and arguably better, version of the original album. ''King of America'' was a critical favorite the first time around but a commercial dud. So perhaps its 21-song bonus CD with nine demo tracks as well as live recordings and outtakes is a bit more than a reasonable person needs. But being beyond reason is the whole point of fanhood. The solo demo version of ''Poisoned Rose'' might not mean much to most people, but to the blinkered fan (like, O.K., me), it's definitely worth owning.

''The human propensity to adore celebrated strangers infuses life with a hundred different flavors of stupidity and sadness, hope and joy,'' the editors of the Benetton-financed magazine Colors observed in a special issue on fans last year. Consider that fans of the canceled ''Star Trek: Enterprise'' TV series claim to have raised nearly $145,000 in an effort to keep it going for another season.

Or on the Costello front, consider the Web site devoted to deconstructing the Rhino releases and speculating about what material might yet resurface. (The site points out that the 1978 ''Chemistry Class'' live recording officially released on Rhino also appeared on ''one of the earliest Elvis Costello bootlegs.'' Duly noted.) Whether these things seem like evidence of stupidity or joy depends on whether you're a fan of ''Star Trek'' or of Costello or of something else. It's only other people's fandom that seems embarrassing or irrational.

Stewart, meanwhile, who will admit to having seen Costello perform live ''more than 50'' times, seems to have just one regret about the Rhino versions of the Costello catalog: There is so much bonus material that the greatness of some individual extra tracks has been overlooked. He speculates about an additional disc that would simply highlight the very best of the Costello bonus material. ''This is a possibly prejudicial statement,'' Stewart says, ''but I think his biggest curse is making too much good music.'' Spoken like a real fan.

Posted by at 6:39 PM | Permalink

The South Wales Echo reports -

St David's Hall, Cardiff

PLAYING the first night of their UK tour, Elvis Costello and the Impostors hit the stage running with a scintillating set lasting an incredible two hours and 20 minutes played at an amazing pace.

With his band the Impostors (the Attractions minus one) Costello's been touring since September, and the tightness showed with him at his brilliant best.

A much underrated guitarist, Costello mixed up the evening, moving effortlessly from country-tinged ballads to blistering pop with imaginative use of guitar whilst Steve Nieve's keyboard work was a joy, providing a perfect foil for Costello's handiwork.

Highlights of the evening included a bluesy Needle Time and Monkey to Man of the newer material while finding time to include such Costello gems as Radio Radio, King of America plus an epic version of Watching the Detectives.

During Alison, Costello managed to squeeze a little Tom Jones into the proceedings with his own take on the Green, Green, Grass of Home sung much to the crowd's delight while reclining in the stalls, just one of the many memorable moments until Elvis, eventually, left the building.

( Submitted by Chris Wright )

Posted by at 2:19 PM | Permalink

Before his tour resumes in Wales this Sunday Elvis has been seen out and about in the U.S.. On Tuesday May 17th he performed at the Riverkeeper benefit in New York. On Wednes. May 18th he attended a U2 show in New Jersey. Bono and co. acknowledged their old friend by including Pump It Up in a medley with their song Vertigo. On Thurs. May 19th he and Diana Krall were seen at a Bruce Springsteen show at the same location.

Posted by at 6:58 PM | Permalink

Elvis Costello and The Imposters
Dunkin' Donuts Newport Folk Festival
at Fort Adams State Park,
Rhode Island
August 7 '05
Tickets on sale May 19

Posted by at 6:48 PM | Permalink

6/11/2005 Portugal, Lisbon Coliseum

6/12/2005 Portugal, Lisbon Coliseum

6/15/2005 Sesto, Italy Fiorentino

6/16/2005 Modena, Italy Parco Novi

6/18/2005 Verona, Italy Teatro Ramano

6/19/2005 Perugia, Italy Villa Lago

Posted by at 7:10 PM | Permalink

Well , it is a good cause.....

The New York Times reports -
Keeping the River Clean

MAY 17 '05 - Elvis Costello will perform at a dinner at Pier 60 that will aid Riverkeeper, the environmental advocacy organization. Drinks at 7 and dinner at 8, with the performance to follow. Tickets, $750, from (212) 245-6570, ext. 20.

Posted by at 8:07 AM | Permalink

Two of the recently cancelled shows have been rescheduled for Aug. 05.

Elvis Costello and The Imposters
The Pageant
St Louis, MO
August 2 '05

Uptown Theater
Kansas City, MO
August 3 '05

( Submitted by favehour )

Posted by at 5:49 AM | Permalink

Having cancelled the last two dates of this U.S. tour - in St. Louis and Cincinatti -due to illness Elvis is now on a break. He next plays live in Cardiff, Wales on Sunday May 22 , starting a U.K. tour

22 May - Cardiff St Davids Hall
23 May - Leicester De Montfort Hall
26 May - Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
28 May - Leeds University Union
29 May - Birmingham Symphony Hall
30 May - Newcastle Tyne Theatre

In the interim he joins Diana Krall in Hawaii for her show on May 8 .

The Honolulu Star Bulletin reports -

Extract -

COSTELLO, who is accompanying Krall to Hawaii but not expected to play, suggested she not try to write lyrics per se, but feelings and the things she loved, imagistic phrases like "the perfume still on my mother's counter."

The Honolulu stop will allow Krall to relax in "my favorite place in the world."

"Hawaii is the only place I can really relax ..." she says.

She and Costello will vacation "someplace (here) where no one knows us." Krall is even considering surfing lessons.

Posted by at 5:01 PM | Permalink

Elvis Costello and The Imposters
Guests : David Hidalgo & Hubert Sumlin
Beale Street Music Festival
Memphis
Tennessee
May 1 '05

1. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
2. Radio Radio
David Hidalgo joins
3. Uncomplicated
4. Clown Strike
5. Monkey To Man
6. Bedlam
7. Country Darkness
8. Needle Time
9. Bertha
10. The Delivery Man
11. Mystery Dance
12. Why Don't You Love Me( like you used to do)?
13. The Monkey
14. Alison/Suspicious Minds
15. Hidden Charms - with special guest Hubert Sumlin on
lead guitar), one false start
16. Mas Y Mas
17. Pump It Up
18. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?

( Submitted by Chris Carkeet and daybreaker)

Posted by at 4:48 PM | Permalink

The Onion reports -

On April 26, Rhino released a two-disc edition of Elvis Costello's 1986 album King Of America, completing a reissue project that's taken five years and encompassed 16 double-disc sets. Best of all for Costello fans, the King Of America reissue includes the last of Costello's personally written liner notes, which, across 16 booklets, at a minimum of 12 pages each, has been the equivalent of a 100-page autobiography. Costello has been remarkably forthright throughout, detailing his varying addictions and obsessions, and in the Get Happy!! notes, he even dissects the infamous, nearly career-derailing moment when he was goaded into calling Ray Charles "a blind, ignorant nigger." Here are some of the highlights of the Costello story, album by album, and in his own words.

Elvis Costello A Life In Liner Notes

By Noel Murray

On April 26, Rhino released a two-disc edition of Elvis Costello's 1986 album King Of America, completing a reissue project that's taken five years and encompassed 16 double-disc sets. Best of all for Costello fans, the King Of America reissue includes the last of Costello's personally written liner notes, which, across 16 booklets, at a minimum of 12 pages each, has been the equivalent of a 100-page autobiography. Costello has been remarkably forthright throughout, detailing his varying addictions and obsessions, and in the Get Happy!! notes, he even dissects the infamous, nearly career-derailing moment when he was goaded into calling Ray Charles "a blind, ignorant nigger." Here are some of the highlights of the Costello story, album by album, and in his own words.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My Aim Is True (1977)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "In 1976 I was operating an I.B.M. 360 computer in an office next to a lipstick factory. My duties included printing out invoices for the moustache waxes of the occasional Duchess who visited the company's West End salon."

Choice Cut: "I spent a lot of time with just a big jar of instant coffee and the first Clash album. By the time I got down to the last few grains, I had written 'Watching The Detectives.'"

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "I continued with my computer job after my first single came and went without troubling the charts. My record advance consisted of 150 pounds, a new cassette tape recorder, and a Vox battery-powered practise amp. I took some of my newfound wealth and bought back a copy of A Hard Day's Night that I had recently been forced to sell to pay the gas bill. About three weeks later I was on the cover of a music paper—an overnight success after seven years."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Year's Model (1978)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "The engineer was Roger Bechirian, who was to work on our next four Nick Lowe-produced albums. It was Roger who had the task of making a sonic reality out of Nick's directions, such as 'turn the drums into one big maraca' or 'make it sound like a dinosaur eating cars.'"

Choice Cut: "One night, while suffering from what might be politely called 'assisted insomnia,' I scrawled a large number of verses about this headlong pursuit of oblivion. Five days later, we recorded 'Pump It Up' in one take."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "For a brief, improbable moment the horrified children of Britain were offered magazines featuring pop pinups of myself... right alongside Debbie Harry and those other blonde beauties, The Police. Thankfully for all concerned, I was just about to screw it up completely."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Armed Forces (1979)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "I'd got used to staggering, half asleep, into a truck-stop in the middle of the night to squander scarce drinking money on irresistible junk... 3-D Jesus postcards, and cut-out Conway and Loretta cassettes that played once and then unraveled. Every shop front or nightclub sign seemed like a line from a song. In some cases that was just what they became."

Choice Cut: "'Chemistry Class' was a reaction to the complacence of some of the university campuses that we visited on those first trips to America. At times we seemed to only encounter hedonism or braying superficiality."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "Personal and global matters are spoken about with the same vocabulary; maybe this was a mistake. Betrayal and murder are not the same thing. I was not quite 24 and I thought I knew it all."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Get Happy!! (1980)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "The success of the Armed Forces album threatened to take us to a place where there was little understanding or tolerance for detail, only a mass reaction to a hit tune. The game I was playing in my mind (or perhaps with my mind) was about to come to a very nasty conclusion. A ridiculous drunken argument would culminate in me speaking the exact opposite of my true beliefs. Our records were pulled from the few radio playlists where they were featured, our shows picketed by the very anti-racist organisation for which we had appeared six months earlier, and there were over a hundred death threats to my person. With hindsight, it might be tempting to claim that I had some noble motive in basing this record on the music that I had admired and learned from prior to my brush with infamy. But... I simply went back to work and relied on instinct, curiosity, and enduring passions."

Choice Cut: "Bearing in mind that this record was made many years before the trend towards 'sampling,' we made a pretty good job of lifting the main figure of Booker T. & The MGs' 'Time Is Tight' for 'Temptation.'"

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "I was standing backstage at a gala show in Los Angeles with a group of friends in the dingy, concrete loading bay when I saw a man in dark sunglasses being led in our direction. It was Ray Charles. All I could do was turn my head away with shame and frustration knowing that this was a hand I will probably never shake."

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Trust (1981)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "From a very personal point of view, this was easily the most drug-influenced record of my career. It was completed close to a self-induced nervous collapse on a diet of rough 'scrumpy' cider, gin and tonic, various powders, only one of which was 'Andrew's Liver Salts,' and, in the final hours, Johnnie Walker Black Label."

Choice Cut: "Although I might have risked a rebellion among The Attractions to state so openly, I privately modeled 'White Knuckles' on a couple of XTC records."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "Almost by accident, the album arrived at a sound and tone that was very true to my feelings at the time. The world it described was the opposite of the album title in much the same way that Get Happy!! had been less than cheerful. It suggested a tarnished and disappointed soul looking beyond the certainties of brash, arrogant youth and early success and on into a life (and possibly a career) in music."

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Almost Blue (1981)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "Much had happened to me... from scandal to disgrace, near-divorce, and the end of something like pop-stardom. Now I had developed the notion that I might better express my feelings through other people's words and music. Country ballads suited my blue mood most of all."

Choice Cut: "Booze was certainly in my blood and on my mind, and this led to us cutting both Merle Haggard's 'Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down' and Charlie Rich's 'Sittin' And Thinkin',' which begins 'I got loaded last night on a bottle of gin,' my drink of choice at the time."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "We were playing the rather soulless Opryland Theater, part of the themepark complex at the edge of [Nashville]. I recall coming away with the gift of a pair of complimentary Opryland cuff links with a mandolin design. That was about the best it got in America."

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Imperial Bedroom (1982)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "To some extent Imperial Bedroom was the record on which The Attractions and I granted ourselves the sort of scope that we imagined The Beatles had enjoyed in the mid-'60s. If we needed a harpsichord or Mellotron, we hired one; if we required a 12-string acoustic guitar, marimba, or accordion, we went out and bought one; if we heard strings and trumpet and horns, we booked the musicians and Steve [Nieve] began writing out the parts."

Choice Cut: "Many of the songs take their cue from the opening track, 'Beyond Belief.' They exhibit a malaise of the spirit and a sinking feeling about happy endings. The souring and spoiling of England was just under way. I intend that most 'private' matters should remain that way, but when the opening track is called 'Beyond Belief,' and the key song of a record is entitled 'Man Out Of Time,' you don't have to be a detective or a psychiatrist to work out what was going on."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "The album was not a big commercial success, despite Columbia Records' absurd 'Masterpiece?' ad campaign—which was really asking for it."

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Punch The Clock (1983)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "Between 1979 and 1983 something strange happened. The British government mutated from an annoying and often disreputable body that spent people's taxes on the wrong things into a hostile regime contemptuous of anyone who did not serve or would not yield to its purpose."

Choice Cut: "['Pills And Soap'] seemed to alarm the BBC, who feared that the lyrics might somehow contravene the rules of broadcasting 'balance' during the election campaign."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "Punch The Clock was our chance to get reacquainted with the wonderful world of pop music and still maintain a sense of humour. After Nashville and the labyrinth of Imperial Bedroom, I was ready to find a different production approach. I haven't always been kind about this album. I find it hard to ignore the benefit of hindsight."

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Goodbye Cruel World (1984)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "I almost completely thwarted the efforts of my producers, Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, and it is true to say that they were probably ill-equipped for dealing with someone of my temperament at that time. A nurse with a large sedative syringe might have been more appropriate."

Choice Cut: "['The Only Flame In Town'] was one of two tracks that were given the concentrated production approach, and like many cuts on the record, makes excessive use of the new DX7 synthesizer, the tone of which might as well date-stamp the album to an exact week in 1984. It is not a sound that has improved with age."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "It is probably the worst record that I could have made of a decent bunch of songs."

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King Of America (1986)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "During my visits to Hollywood, I found myself sitting around hotel rooms late at night with other songwriters, drinking and swapping stories and songs. This was entirely new to someone who had started out in the rather more insular and competitive London scene. I would meet a lot of musicians and other interesting characters in [T-Bone Burnett's] company over the next few years, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Willie Dixon, Harry Dean Stanton, Kris Kristofferson, and Lucinda Williams."

Choice Cut: "[On] the fade of 'I'll Wear It Proudly'... Mitchell [Froom] plays the organ melody that I had sung to him. He would make good use of it, turning a variation of that theme into a hook on his production of the big Crowded House hit, 'Don't Dream It's Over.'"

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "I had found myself in the darker implications of adulthood and still being billed as some kind of 'vengeful geek' just didn't make it anymore. It was the exact opposite of an 'identity crisis.' I now decided to re-claim my family name... King Of America might have been credited to 'Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus,' but anxious management and the record company people prevailed."

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Blood & Chocolate (1986)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "This is a record of people beating and twanging things with a fair amount of yelling. Although it's commonly thought that high volume in the studio creates an uncontrollable sonic picture, this approach seemed to suit the material entirely."

Choice Cut: "The events of 'Tokyo Storm Warning' travel from Narita to Heysel via Pompeii, Port Stanley, Paris, and London. Tokyo is just the place where these things begin and end. It is a city for which I am never prepared. Each arrival is shocking and slightly alienating... it is only when you are about to leave that the rhythm of the place starts to make sense and you wish you had more time."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "The album was a pissed-off 32-year-old divorcé's version of the musical blueprint with which I had begun my recording career with The Attractions. My relationship with the band had now soured almost beyond repair."

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Spike (1989)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "Having just signed to Warner Bros. for the entire world, I was working with the budget of a small independent movie. I had the blueprint of five albums in my head. They told me to make whatever record I wanted. I seem to have elected to make all five albums at once."

Choice Cut: "'Veronica' was one of the very first songs [Paul McCartney and I] worked on. It is a wishful song about my grandmother's failing hold on memory and reality. As the subject was so personal, I didn't find it so easy to edit the song. Paul put some shape into the music of a rambling bridge and tightened up a few of the lyrical lines in the verses."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "['Veronica'] went into the U.S. Top 20. If it had not done so, then this album might have been counted amongst the most obscure in my catalogue. Instead of which, during its original release, it became the best-selling album of my career to date. When I listen to it now, this seems pretty curious—not because the songs are bad, but because they are rather off, each track being very different from the next. I'm not so sure anyone would bankroll a record of this kind these days. So I am rather glad that we made Spike while I had the chance."

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Mighty Like A Rose (1991)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "CNN was trailing every bulletin with their new 'Desert Storm' logo and musical fanfare. I did not imagine that I would be recording any of this record during wartime when I wrote it, although I was looking at the world without much affection. Many of my early records have been described as being 'angry,' a quality that I think is exaggerated by a quirk of my vocal delivery. However, if you really want to hear an angry record, then this disc is for you."

Choice Cut: "This album opens with 'The Other Side of Summer.' The arrangement is a pastiche of The Beach Boys after the fashion of The Beatles' 'Back In The U.S.S.R.' The words are a catalogue of pop conceits, deceits, hypocrisies, and delusions. I include myself in this parade of liars and dupes."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "This record says the world we are making is grim, and I believe that it is. We are cruel to each other, we lie and manipulate until the unworthy encounter a love to which we must surrender."

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Brutal Youth (1994)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "Although Pete Thomas and I had continued to work together since the apparent demise of The Attractions, my relationship with Steve Nieve and Bruce Thomas was pretty nonexistent. After my attempt to reassemble the band for the recording of Mighty Like A Rose had ended in an unseemly legal squabble, I assumed that we had cut our last record together."

Choice Cut: "'This Is Hell' was an attempt to continue the fantasy afterlife theme of 'God's Comic' from Spike. I hope the song justifies its existence with the notion that 'in hell' you can hear Richard Rogers' 'My Favourite Things,' but it is always performed by Julie Andrews and never by John Coltrane."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "The album was tagged with that lame old cliché: 'back to basics.' These simplifications may have made for good ad copy and lazy journalism, but they were pretty inaccurate. In time I came to regard the Brutal Youth sessions as a failure, simply because the little that was said about the album tended to focus on superficial appearances and the soap-opera mechanics of the recording, while totally ignoring the content."

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Kojak Variety (1995)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "The simple idea of going to a Caribbean island to record 'some of my favourite songs with some of my favourite musicians'—as the original sleeve note defined this record—seemed like an inviting prospect. Our afternoon breaks saw a table laden with green mangoes and flying fish. The evening began with rum and grapefruit cocktails. Wild monkeys had been briefly glimpsed in a field beside the studio."

Choice Cut: "I first heard Little Richard's 'Bama Lama Bama Loo' in 1964. I have the record in front of me now. It's an 'A' label [advance] copy, which means I got it from my father [a big-band singer]. It also certainly means I am actually the second member of the McManus family to perform 'Bama Lama Bama Loo.'"

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "I really wanted Warner Bros. to issue the record without any fanfare, letting it simply appear in the racks. It was the kind of 'lost record' that I dreamed of discovering, by one of my favourite bands, while idly flipping through racks of vinyl during the thousands of hours that I had spent in record shops."

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All This Useless Beauty (1996)

Preparation/Production/Perspective: "This record exists in the distance between an ideal and the reality. I've read that it is simply a collection of songs that I wrote for other singers—usually with the implication that this was a bad or inferior thing."

Choice Cut: "The bleaker implication of ['I Want To Vanish'] was not something I'd expect anyone else to relish. The line 'I'm as certain as a lost dog pondering a signpost' pretty much states my frame of mind at the time of this recording."

Reflections/Reactions/Reprisals: "The fan or admirer in many of us may imagine a different creative history for our favourite singers, actors, and artists. What if Elvis Presley had lived to record 'Brilliant Disguise' by Bruce Springsteen or Picasso had painted the Forth Bridge or Winona Ryder had taken the part of the daughter in The Godfather III? Or perhaps all these things are better the way they are. In the end it doesn't really matter that Johnny Cash never recorded 'Complicated Shadows' or that Sam Moore couldn't see himself singing 'Why Can't A Man Stand Alone.' It was enough to be thinking of them."

Posted by at 4:14 PM | Permalink

Elvis did festival shows in New Orleans and Memphis this past weekend.

New Orleans -

It allowed time to hustle over to the Sprint/Sanyo Stage, where Elvis Costello and the Imposters -- augmented by David Hidalgo of Los Lobos -- wrapped up their set in fine fashion. After a mass singalong on Smokey Robinson and The Miracles' "You Really Got a Hold On Me," Costello -- who had watched Jamie Cullum on Friday at the same stage -- eased everyone back down with "The Scarlet Tide," the final cut on his "Delivery Man" album, just acoustic guitar, fiddle and Costello's ragged glory of a voice.

Memphis -

Elvis Costello, who did rare club shows at the Hi-Tone in Memphis last year, was back, this time serenading the sunset over the Budweiser stage. His band featured guest guitarist David Hidalgo of Los Lobos and drew heavily on material from Delivery Man, recorded last year in Oxford, Miss., with a sprinkling of old favorites such as "Radio, Radio."

Hubert Sumlin guested .

A fan adds -

the show was amazing from my front and center perspective. e and the boys were in top form, and elvis was laughing and goofing around, doing this little shuffle dance. it was rather funny when he and hubert started out in different keys doing hidden charms and had to start over...what a laugh. who knows what would have happened if he could have played longer!

the guys watched ike turner before them from the wings and seemed as amused/disgusted as the crowd was when ike and fake tina simulated sex with noises and gestures. ike is a crude, crude man.

some of my friends (not nearly as huge on elvis) went totally nutso when e and david hidalgo did "bertha." i just felt so blessed to see elvis, pete, davey, steve, david, and hubert sumlin on the same stage

Posted by at 4:11 PM | Permalink

Elvis Costello and The Imposters
June 21st - Bonn, Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle , Germany
June 22nd LA CIGALE , Paris , France
June 28th - Nürnberg, Serenadenhof , Germany

Posted by at 3:57 PM | Permalink

Unconfirmed reports say that Elvis' show in Kansas City tonight , May 3rd , has been cancelled 'due to illness' , to be rescheduled in August.

Posted by at 3:43 PM | Permalink

Elvis Costello and The Imposters
Special guest :David Hidalgo
New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival
Sprint/Sanyo Stage
New Orleans
Louisiana
April 30 '05

1. Watching the Detectives
2. Radio, Radio
3. ( I don't want to got to ) Chelsea
4. Clubland/ I Feel Pretty
(introduces David Hidalgo)
5. Uncomplicated
6. Clown Strike
7. Monkey to Man
8. Bedlam
9. Country Darkness
10. Needle Time
11. Bertha
12. Brilliant Mistake
13. Mystery Dance
14. Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used to Do)?
15. The Monkey
16. Alison/Suspicious Minds
17. Mas Y Mas
18. Pump It Up
19. ( Whats so funny 'bout ) Peace, Love and Understanding?
20. You Realy Got a Hold on Me
21. The Scarlet Tide

( Submitted by pophead2k)

Posted by at 6:01 AM | Permalink

Elvis Costello and The Pickups
The Norva
Norfolk
Virginia
April 26 '05

1. Radio Sweetheart/Jackie Wilson Said - Elvis solo acoustic
Pete and Davey enter stage
2. No Action
3. (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
4. Radio Radio
5. Pads, Paws & Claws
6. Nothing Clings Like Ivy - Elvis on Wurlitzer organ
7. Running Out Of Fools - Elvis on Wurlitzer organ
8. Kinder Murder
9. Watching The Detectives
David Hidalgo enters stage
10. Uncomplicated
11. Clown Strike
12. Monkey To Man
13. Bedlam
14. Country Darkness
15. Needle Time
16. Dust 2…
17. Bertha - Hidalgo on lead vocals
18. Matter Of Time - duet by Costello and Hidalgo
19. Brilliant Mistake
20. American Without Tears
21. Mystery Dance
22. Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used To Do)?
23. Alison/Suspicious Minds
24. The Monkey
25. Mas Y Mas - Hidalgo on lead vocals
26. Pump It Up
27. Love That Burns
28. Heart Of The City
29. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?
30. The Scarlet Tide

( Submitted by John Treffeisen )

Posted by at 5:48 AM | Permalink

Elvis Costello and The Pickups
Classic Center
Athens
Georgia
April 27 '05

1. Radio Sweetheart/Jackie Wilson Said (EC Solo)
Pete and Davey come out
2. 45
3. Radio Radio
4. Don’t Lose Your Grip on Love
5. Pads, Paws, and Claws
6. Running out of Fools
7. Kinder Murder
8. Watching the Detectives
David Hidalgo comes out
9. Uncomplicated
10. Clownstrike
11. Monkey to Man
12. Button My Lip
13. Country Darkness
14. Needle Time
15. Bertha
16. A Matter of Time
17. Brilliant Mistake
18. The Delivery Man
19. Mystery Dance
20. Why Don't you Love me (Like You Used to Do)?
21. The Monkey Speaks His Mind
22. Alison/Suspicious Minds
23. Mas Y Mas
24. Pump It Up
25. Heart of the City
26. (Whats so funny 'bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding
27. Scarlet Tide

( Submitted by Donna)

Posted by at 5:41 AM | Permalink