Concert review: Elvis Costello and the Imposters, April 15, San Francisco

When I saw that Elvis Costello was going to be performing in Northern California the same time I was making my quasi-annual pilgrimage to the homeland, I knew I wasn’t going to pass that opportunity up. Especially as he was on his “Spectacular Spinning Songbook” tour, a unique vaudevillian experience where Costello played the carnival barker and let the audience choose the set list.

I’ve seen Costello play twice now, in Oregon in 2002 and San Francisco in 2012, and each time it’s been one of the best concert experiences of my life. The man puts 110 percent into each and every performance, and is a true showman. For my money he’s got one of the richest songbooks in popular music, from the angry young man “My Aim Is True” era to the stately chamber pop of “Imperial Bedroom” to the twisted rage-rock of “Brutal Youth” to the bittersweet country rock of "National Ransom."

And at San Francisco’s historic Warfield theatre the other night, Costello traveled through it all. The “spinning songbook” is a gimmick he briefly used back in the 1980s and has revived for his new tour, a “Wheel of Fortune” style device that audience members are invited to spin, and wherever it stops, Costello plays a tune. Costello adopts the huckster persona of “Napoleon Dynamite” (which predates the kitschy movie by years, thanks) and the stage includes such oddities as a “society lounge” bar and a go-go dancer cage eager fans are invited to enter. It all rides the line between cheesy and cool but Costello delivers it firmly tongue-in-cheek. Even the go-go dancing cage worked, and we got to see some truly terrible white folks' dancing from some of the audience members, but everyone was having a blast. The Imposters were in great form too, especially the invaluable Steve Nieve on keyboards (and occasionally, a great theremin).

Costello and the Imposters were on fire from the start, blasting out with a mini-set that included a roaring “Lipstick Vogue” and a sprawling “Watching The Detectives” before the wheel-spinning began. Selections on the wheel included individual songs and “theme” picks like “Time” or “Roses” that would launch a few grouped songs. Having ordinary folk come up and interact with Costello made the concert have a nifty community feeling, and the wheel made the concert a nice mix of classics and rarities and some great covers. A dynamic version of “Episode of Blonde” saw Elvis wandering the entire audience as he sang, even coming up onto the balcony not 10 feet away from me.

The concert really had me once again appreciating Costello’s vast resume of songs – “Everyday I Write The Book,” a haunting “Deep Dark Truthful Mirror,” fierce takes on “Mystery Dance” and “Radio Radio.” It also opened my eyes to how good Costello can be at covers, and his deep appreciation of other artists. Few musicians have such eclectic tastes from country to opera to pop, and this night Costello took on the Rolling Stones (a wonderful, singalong “Out of Time”), Chuck Berry (“No Particular Place To Go”), an utterly joyful Beatles “Please Please Me” and a song that particularly appealed to this Bay Area crowd, the Grateful Dead’s “Ramble On Rose.” By the time it wrapped up after 2 ½ hours with a boisterous “(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding,” we were all converted to the Church of the Spectacular Singing Songbook.

It was a great show – the only flaws being that my balcony seat kind of obscured the colourful wheel and that people around me couldn’t stop fiddling with their damn iPhones during the show (hey, I love my iPhone too, but I’m able to stop playing with it sometimes). Oh, and after the show I had to walk across town through San Francisco's seediest neighborhood The Tenderloin at nearly midnight, but hey, I survived!

Nik's unheralded albums #2: Elvis Costello, "Mighty Like A Rose"

Elvis Costello, "Mighty Like A Rose" (1991)

The thing some people like and some people don't like about Elvis Costello is that he's a dabbler. The one-time punk's angriest young literary man has gone on to forge a career of astounding diversity, doing everything from country music to fuzzy garage rock to laidback balladry to even, god forbid, an opera. I personally love Costello's never-idle mind, even if all of his career spins don't quite pan out (the opera, no thank you). Costello is always recognizably himself, even when trying on different genres. One of Costello's albums that is often overlooked when his career is considered is 1991's "Mighty Like A Rose," which is an album of violent, almost dizzying eclecticism.

"Mighty Like A Rose" was the first time I fell hard for Costello, and perhaps that's why I hold it so dear. It's full of verbose wit and rage like the best of his work, while musically it careens about like a drunken sailor, with blasting guitars, horns, calliope, flutes, even maracas. "If you really want to hear an angry record," Costello writes in the liner notes, "then this one is for you." He had an untamed long-haired, bearded look around the time of this album which makes him look like some kind of demented prophet coming from the other side. The lyrics reflect this new look -- the first lines on the album are "The sun struggles up another beautiful day / and I felt glad in my own suspicious way." So the tone is set, as "Rose" swings between malice and mourning. There's a kind of lurching energy to "Rose" that reminds me a bit of Tom Waits.

"The Other Side of Summer" is a Beach Boys song wrung through a dark wringer, sneering instead of crooning. Men and women recur throughout "Rose" playing cruel games with each other. In "Harpies Bizarre" the girl is crushed by the worldly stranger. In "After the Fall" she has her revenge. Two songs co-written with Paul McCartney feature here; in their "Playboy to a Man" it's romance as jaunty battle of the sexes; Costello yelps, "now you're standing there in your underwear / now you know just how it feels for her."

If "Rose" were just meanness it wouldn't have much appeal, but what I also like are the moments of tenderness like the brittle "Sweet Pear" or "So Like Candy," and the razor sharp wit of songs like the over-the-top rant "How To Be Dumb" or "Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)," which is about exactly what it sounds like.

What I'd have to call one of my top 5 Elvis Costello songs of all closes out the record on a note of resounding grace -- "Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4" which reels about like a carnival from an alternate universe, a catalogue of surrealistic imagery. There's a fine sleight of hand here as Costello sings of "shadows of regret" and broken hearts, then reveals himself as a character in the song -- "well I'm the lucky goon / who composed this tune / from birds arranged on the high wire." He ends with what he later called a kind of "agnostic prayer," a beautiful moment when all the anger and frustration of the album ends with a glimpse of hope -- "Please don't let me fear anything I cannot explain / I can't believe, I'll never believe in anything again."

MUSIC: Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint, "The River In Reverse"

MUSIC: Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint, "The River In Reverse"

I'm a big Elvis Costello nut, but I do get a bit leery when I see he's collaborating with other people or trying out a new genre. I love his variety and omnivorous musical mind, but it doesn't always pan out into fine music. Sometimes, it's fab, like his country-influenced "King of America" or his smoothly cool Burt Bacharach duets CD. Then sometimes you get an album like 2003's limp "North," toothless lite-jazz noodlings. He's even apparently put out an opera CD – and sorry, I'm not that dedicated.

So I didn't rush out and buy Costello's latest, "The River In Reverse," the day it came out. A collaboration with New Orleans R&B legend Allen Toussaint, I wasn't sure about it. I'm ashamed to say I wasn't really familiar with Toussaint (whom I learned is the man behind classics like "Working in the Coalmine") and didn't want to waste time on a pointless Costello side project. I apologize, Elvis – it's a great CD, your best since 2002's "When I Was Cruel."

Costello's worked with Toussaint before, on EC's venomous classic "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" from 1989's "Spike." Costello apparently approached Toussaint last year at some benefit concerts for Hurricane Katrina victims and Costello whipped out a little song for the duo, "The River in Reverse." It was written and debuted in a show the same day, and led the men to to decide to try an entire album together, dedicated to the revival of New Orleans. (Here's a little more on how the album came to be.)

Costello does a lot of things wonderfully, but "he's got soul" isn't something I normally think of him. Yet "The River In Reverse" is packed with a warm Mississippi Delta soul, awash in the ghosts of New Orleans. It's got a soul that doesn't feel forced or faux-ironic, and a battered optimism that's truly appealing. I'm not real familiar with Toussaint, I admit, but he's a terrific collaborator for Elvis, with his fluid piano lines and the loose swing his songs have (about half the songs on the CD are Toussaint's compositions alone, about half joint works, and a couple of Costello solo works). The music has the groove of a jam, but the discipline of solid songwriting backing it up. The men are kindred spirits, balancing each other's strengths and weaknesses.

Throughout "River," a celebratory tone flows. It's not ignoring the recent devastation in the Big Easy, but it's looking back wistfully and what was and what hopefully will be one day again, in songs like "On Your Way Down," "Broken Promise Land" and more. There's certainly anger to be found about how muddled the human disaster was – "there's a place where words mean nothing or much less," Costello sneers in one tune – but Toussaint's lively arrangements balance out Costello's darker instincts. One of the disc's best songs is "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?" which features Toussaint on lead vocals and bounces under a kicky bass line, punchy trumpet and organ. "What happened to the Liberty Bell I heard so much about?" Toussaint sings in a snappy couplet about the government's flubbed response to Katrina, "Did it really ding-dong? It must have dinged wrong / It didn't ding long." Sure, sounds silly written down, but trust me, it's a cool song.

"Tribute" albums often are more well-intentioned than truly good music. But by gently evoking the ideas and legends of New Orleans centered around some ripping fine tunes, "The River In Reverse" does the Big Easy proud.

Have a good 4th of July, all, I'll be visiting with the parents and back sometime next week with more posts.