Elvis Costello with Steve Nieve
Orpheum Theater, Boston MA October 21, 1999

By Brendan Clarke
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January 6, 2000 | Page 1

At the outset, it should be noted that this review will nowhere near the unbiased. Elvis is God, and anyone who disagrees is a dirty, dirty heathen. So when the bespectacled crooner, along with his frenetic ivory-hammering sidekick Steve Nieve, descended from on high into Boston's Orpheum Theater, He provided his always-rabid fans with nothing short of a religious experience.

Clad in sleek black, Costello seemingly set aside his status as rock's most daring and cerebral composer to fully embrace his performer persona. Several personas actually, for the "beloved entertainer" donned many hats throughout the show, from lovable clown to tortured loner to bittersweet storyteller. Fittingly, the concert opened with Elvis bathed in darkness, the backdrop's green hue barely illuminating through his horn-rimmed glasses, as he cranked his electric guitar and bellowed "Alibi, alibi..."-- a suitable preamble to the many alibis he would be assuming throughout the evening.

The "old" favorites seemed rejuvenated with the necessarily economic guitar and piano arrangements. Even with the pared-down instrumentation no fire was squelched, the duo blazing through rocking versions of "Pump It Up," "Watching the Detectives," and other hits from Costello's best known "punk-ish" period. Only a few missteps occurred, mostly on the side of overblown electronica such as Nieve's synthesized drumbeats during a raucous "Clubland" (if you want drums, bring the drummer), but mostly the show provided a well-balanced journey through the legend's near thirty-year catalog of tunes, from the playful (the appropriate "God's Comic" was a delightful highlight) to the melancholy (the haunting "I Want You" is even more affecting in it's stripped-down live state).

Costello seemed most at home with the newer, more ballady material from Painted from Memory, his wonderful recent album with 70's pop guru Burt Bacharach. Freed from the constraints of his guitar strap and elegantly augmented by Nieve's classique piano, Elvis seemingly reveled in such bittersweet ballads as "What's Her Name Today?" and "I Still Have That Other Girl," emoting with the passion of a Sondheim songster with a splash of Sinatra.

Hands down, the high mark of the show occurred in the final encore when Elvis walked away from the microphone and belted out "Last Boat Leaving" at the foot of the stage with no artificial amplification (close enough for those of us lucky souls in the front row to shake his hands which are, for the record, surprisingly soft for an Englishman's). By filling the silent theater with his melodramatic vibrato, Costello proved that in the end, his most powerful instrument is his unique and passionate voice, tear-jerking and awe-inspiring.

Like the stilted characters in his songs, Costello's onstage odyssey allowed the audience tiny glimpses into the "real" man behind the bifocals, only to be intentionally jerked out of the tender and painful realms by a sly grin or a playfully-delivered punchline, almost as if the clown in him jumped to the confessor's protection when things got a little too heavy. Then again, maybe his covered-up fragility was just another part of the act, necessary to retain the visceral spark after singing the same songs night after night for twenty years. Whichever, the emotional tour upon which Costello guided us was so enthralling, touching, and unforgettable that even entertaining the thought of insincerity is heart-breaking. Like when watching a master illusionist, I'd rather play dumb and simply revel in the magic.

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Brendan Clarke is a PopPulse Editor. He lives and writes in Hanover, Massachusetts where he has been known to try his luck at stand-up comedy. Brendan is a Capricorn.
brendanclarke@poppulse.com