Elvis Costello and the Confederates
Thebarton Theatre
In his warm-up set Nick Lowe, King of the rockpile, warned that Elvis Costello’s concert in Adelaide would be no ordinary gig. After months on the road from Atlanta, Georgia through Europe, Japan and Australia, Adelaide was the band’s last stop before heading, variously, home.
Lowe obliged with a modest draught of his bubbly pop – Cruel to be Kind, Without Love and, befitting an erstwhile son-in-law of Johnny Cash, he moved his vowels from London to Tennessee to sing I Knew the Bride when She Used to Rock and Roll from his Cowboy Outfit album.
A fanfare of synthesisers opened the second half and Elvis Costello capered on with his acoustic guitar for a solo version of Girls Talk from his Trust album.
Costello emerged in the power pop days of the late Seventies along with Joe Jackson and Graham Parker. Jackson has gone into torch ballads and Ellington, Parker, regrettably, has gone into obscurity and Elvis Costello has become nearly as musically eclectic and prolific as Bob Dylan.
Dressed like the Milky Bar kid in frock coat and diamante bootlace tie, Elvis is like an egghead hoodlum. Like Dylan he arrogantly chose the pseudonym of a legend and, also like him, he has lived up to his own promise. Costello has to be one of the most inventive composers and performers to be found anywhere.
And that is even before we get to the band. Having deflected the Attractions, his regular backing group for the past decade, Costello has got together a bunch of demi-gods called the Confederates which includes Southern Gentlemen James Burton and Jim Keltner, with Jerry Schiff on bass, Austin Delore on keyboards, including Wurlitzer and Hammond, and Nick Lowe again, on rhythm guitar and vocals.
When the Confederates opened fire with Tokyo Storm Warning and the mixers frantically twiddled the knobs and switches to contain the cavernous sound, you knew it wasn’t going to be one of those fifty minute phone-ins Elvis used to be notorious for. With Pouring Water on a Drowning Man and Brilliant Mistake the band moved from rockabilly to mainline Costello like licks of lightning.
When the other Elvis, the one from Graceland, used to go on the road the first phone-call was for guitarist James Burton. On stage his speed and precision at the frets of his Fender is only matched by Jim Keltner’s drumming. Session drummer to the famous, Keltner sat hunched over his rig and not only never missed a beat all night but played like there were three of him. It was all solid bass drum and crisp snares and cymbals – no bomblast, just relentless, classic rock and roll.
Elvis sang so many new songs that it was hard to keep track. With Let Him Dangle, a bitter account of the execution of an innocent, Costello began to bring a vehemence and passion to his singing which is singularly unnerving.
In the first set with the Confederates Costello sang songs from King of America – I Wear it Proudly, The Poisoned Rose and The Big Light, then Are You Straight or Are You Blind and Uncomplicated (with Elvis spraying Stratocaster feedback everywhere) from his recent Blood and Chocolate album.
Back on his own with an acoustic guitar sound the size of a house, Costello sang his classic Watching the Detectives and, with a one-line quote from Alison, it was adieu, apparently.
Then, after the crowd peeled the paint off the roof, Elvis returned to perform the longest encore since Melba. He opened with I Want You · extemporised into a mantra of yearning the like of which we haven’t heard since John Lennon’s brand of open-heart self-surgery. In a great show this was one of the best moments.
Oliver’s Army, Costello’s tilt against the military has lost none of its chipper sarcasm. This was followed by new songs Feline Tormenter and the Randy Newman-ous God’s Comic.
Even though Costello had not brought along his chocolate wheel to spin for requests, the crowd was getting fidgety for favourites. For the long-awaited Pump it Up, from This Year’s Model, Elvis hit the switch on the rhythm machine and cranked up the Stratocaster for a raucous performance that detoured into Subterranean Homesick Blues before surfacing again. Elvis switched to keyboards for the winsome Veronica and the gentle ballad Hide Your Love. Then he out-moondanced Van Morrison with a version of Jackie Wilson Said.
When he got round to the full version of Alison it meandered into an Irish dirge of revenge against Thatcher and her ilk reminding us that not only is Elvis married to a member of the Pogues, but his real name is Declan McManus.
With the ground crew at Thebarton looking nervously at their watches Costello renewed his alliance with the Confederates to go way over the curfew for the final set. Starting with Lovable from the new album and band was by now a juggernaut of rock and roll – loud, immaculately clear and playing in preternatural accord.
They breathed life into country hokum like Merle Haggard’s Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down and Jim Reeves’ He’ll Have to Go, and, with Elvis strumming the strings off his Gibson, Nick Lowe came forward to duet on his What’s So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding? One more neanderthal rocker – Leave My Kitten Alone, a new slow march – Day is Done and then Elvis wrapped his mangled vowels around the cornpone grinder That’s How You Got Killed Before. After two and three quarter hours he and the Confederates finally punched the clock.
Though he hadn’t intended to, Costello had come close to playing a history of rock and roll. He performs like a coiled spring, his energy seems limitless and the intensity is scary.
Admirers who have been wondering whether he has been losing direction lately need not worry.
“This Year’s Model”, The Adelaide Review, No.46, January, 1988, pp.21-2.