Elvis plays Ithaca, Nov. 7 2013

[johnfoyle]

Who's going?

[johnfoyle]

Dan Smalls Presents ‏@dansmalls tweets -

We are down to the wire and SOMEHOW!!! there are still like 40 tickets left for Elvis Costello tomorrow night.


http://statetheatreofithaca.frontgateti ... k=62716975

[bronxapostle]

ENJOY THE SHOW..and keep a setlist PLEASE!!!!

[johnfoyle]

Preview - http://www.stargazette.com/article/2013 ... ck_check=1

[bronxapostle]

deleted as i had posted 11-6 setlist here..SORRY!!!

[docinwestchester]

Wow...again.

Hope the voice holds out for Port Chester. I'm predicting at least one cancellation this month.

[MOJO]

I'm confused. You are posting a set list for a show that has yet to be performed? That's a bit too much, isn't it? Clueless and confused. Elvis rules!

[docinwestchester]

I'm confused. You are posting a set list for a show that has yet to be performed? That's a bit too much, isn't it? Clueless and confused. Elvis rules!

Haha. I missed that.

[bronxapostle]

I'm confused. You are posting a set list for a show that has yet to be performed? That's a bit too much, isn't it? Clueless and confused. Elvis rules!

Haha. I missed that.

sorry Mojo...confused Troy with Ithaca...upstate NY from a BRONX dude seems all the same. shall delete!!!

[bronxapostle]

Wow...again.

Hope the voice holds out for Port Chester. I'm predicting at least one cancellation this month.

don't worry doc!! NO CANCELLATIONS1 this ain't MORRISSEY!!!

[monkey2man]

got 5th row seats to this show, but ended up not being able to go. gave them to a deserving friend in exchange for him writing down what he can of the setlist for us.

[bronxapostle]

wow monkey...sorry! i too have an upstate gig NEXT thursday in kingston! i thought 2 hours was plenty. ithaca is a bit further, yes? well, hope your friend appreciates the great gift!! cheers, benny

[docinwestchester]

Arianna Zahos ‏@AriannaZahos 9m
Just met Elvis Costello...wow pic.twitter.com/mI5TFSB1ej

Meaty Vegan ‏@EricCLindstrom 3m
The #ElvisCostello Solo concert tonight was a life changer. @ElvisCostello @stateofithaca pic.twitter.com/db6GLaN0MP

[johnfoyle]

Carol posts to f/book-


Finally back home from the Ithaca show (dodged a few deer and I think a wolf on the drive back). Fantastic show in a great theater. Voice sounded pretty strong with just a few pitchy issues. Guitar playing sounded great. The audience was great -- very receptive and no asshole behavior that I witnessed (except for a rather portly guy who wiggled himself onto the stage after the show to, I assume, grab a set list). Because I had the long drive back, I decided not to do any backstage door stuff. Plus, I didn't see anyone I knew waiting, so I don't know if there were any other listers there.

I think I got most of the songs; though there are two or three where I can't read my handwriting:

Waiting for the End of the World
King Horse (!!)
45
God's Comic (incredible version)
Deportee (!!)
Veronica
Americans Without Tears (Yay! Gorgeous)
Last Boat Leaving
New Amsterdam/You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
Walking My Baby Back Home
Something (sorry -- can't read my handwriting)
Ghost Train
Something (sorry)
Radio Soul
Alison
----First Encore--------
Slow Drag With Josephine
My Blue Chair
Every Day I Write the Book
My Three Sons
Jimmy Standing in the Rain
----2nd Encore-------
Less Than Zero
Tripwire/PLU
----3rd Encore (piano)--------
I'm in the Mood Again
Puppet Has Cut His Strings

[invisible Pole]

I'm In The Mood Again! Wow!!

[monkey2man]

this is the setlist my friend emailed to me last night after the show:


Workin week
King horse
45
Gods comic
Deportee
Veronica
American without tears
Last boat leavin
New Amsterdam -> hide your love away -> new Amsterdam
Walking my baby back home
Ghost train
Voice in the dark
church underground
Our little angel
Radio radio (radio soul)
Alison
Josephine
Blue chair
Write the book
My three sons
The sky is falling
Less than zero
Tripwire
Peace love understanding
I'm in the mood again
The puppet has cut his strings

Maybe it'll help you fill in the holes. Sounded like a killer show!

[sweetest punch]

Tripwire / PLU: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmQfEKE_X0I

[johnfoyle]

Thoughtful preview -

http://www.ithaca.com/arts_and_entertai ... 963f4.html

[Man out of Time]

Thoughtful preview -

http://www.ithaca.com/arts_and_entertai ... 963f4.html

This link is not working well, so posting the full text here:

"Costello: In His Place at the Top

By Luke Z. Fenchel

Elvis Costello, though a frequent collaborator, is a singular solo force. Even when he’s backed by his bands—initially the Attractions (Steve Nieve on keyboards, Pete Thomas on drums, and Bruce Thomas on bass ’78-86, ‘94-96) and then more recently the Impostors (subbing in Davey Faragher on bass)—there’s no doubt they are his backing band. When he collaborates with others (Aimee Mann, Allen Toussaint, The Brodsky Quartet, and Burt Bacharach, and that only covers A’s and B’s!) he makes his projects his own.

All of which means that when he steps on the State Theatre’s stage at 8 p.m. tonight (there’s no scheduled opener), audiences should prepare for a tour de force. Great artists aren’t always omnivorous in their output — and when they are, the results are often mixed — but a quick listen of Wake Up Ghost, Costello’s recent collaboration with the Roots—or any of the four albums he put out in the last five years—confirms that the singer and songwriter’s hit-to-miss ratio is way above average for artists his age.

And he certainly has aged, from that young punk with horn-rimmed glasses who had the nerve to cop just about the most famous name in rock and roll and from his first album on, refused to dumb down his material. I was born the year My Aim is True was released — and for my entire life the man has been putting out uncompromising records.

His songs are dense with sonic and lyrical detail—offhand I can’t think of an artist as well-read (perhaps John Cale)—and can be hard to handle. Costello is in the league of the late great Lou Reed; I doubt anyone could spend more than a few minutes listening to Reed’s decade’s-old The Raven without cringing. Cale famously released the live record Guts performing with a hockey mask—three years before Friday the Thirteenth. Costello showed them.

But that doesn’t mean the critics don’t cringe. The insufferably verbose Nick Paumgarten began a rambling profile of the genius a few years back with “Authentic once and pretentious later.” Listen closely to his four most recent records, Momofuku with Jenny Lewis (decent), the country-tinged Secret, Profane & Sugarcane (2009) and National Ransom (2010) (unexpected, but far better than most who adopt the old-timey style), and this year’s Wake Up Ghost leads to the inevitable conclusion that all Costello has done wrong is not to have been born Paul McCartney. And McCartney hasn’t had to run his own television show.

Great artists aren’t often so varied, and especially in pop music, it’s hard to shrug off an aural association. Audiences are always in search of the elusive concept of authenticity: as an artist, it’s practically obligatory to capitulate or anticipate the backlash. Costello, constantly, has bucked this trend.

Costello has less in common with other songwriters than a select handful of artists: Stephen Soderbergh, Damien Hirst, Prince. You don’t forgive these guys their indulgences; you engage them.

The conceit of Wise Up Ghost, for instance, is to create a backward-looking album without nostalgia and explicit samples; the result is a record that sounds better with each listen. The first two tracks hit like a band that’s been playing together for what sounds like ages. The rest of the record works into a steady groove of deep cuts, songs that are built to last. Some sample Spike, an underappreciated Warner Brothers release; others reference or allude to other songs or albums.

Costello has never met a pun with which he didn’t have fun, or a metaphor from which he didn’t wrangle multiple meanings. I often liken him to a musical Lorrie Moore. On “(She Might Be A) Grenade” Costello plays with double meanings and word associations to transform insecurity about a hook-up’s past partners into a terrorist attack, circling around clichés explosions: “She’s pulling out the pin / That lets her hair fall down”; “She came out high and kicking / while the band played ‘Hey, Good Looking’ / Do you hear something ticking?” He revisits the phrase in the title track, where he practically packs more references into a lyric than there are notes.

Anxiety has never been an unfamiliar theme for Costello: in many of his songs typical male insecurity morphs into political and existential paranoia. It can tend to tax a listener, but it also pays you back in spades.

Because he doesn’t foster “casual listeners,” when Costello performs live he respects and rewards fans. He’s polarizing—I have tried to learn not to impose him on friends and partners—but his aim is true.

Elvis Costello performs at the State Theatre Thursday, Nov. 7."

MOOT

[And No Coffee Table]

Elvis Costello At the State
November 11, 2013 1:01 am

By ZACH ZAHOS

There is an awesome dissonance to Elvis Costello’s genius: He’s got that voice, as recognizable as David Bowie’s or Van Morrison’s (if you think about it, it pretty much sounds like a marriage of the two) that has hardly changed after more than 40 years of belting. But then you’ve got his actual music — 32 studio albums worth, kicking off with radio-friendly punk before spiraling into soul, country, folk, electronica, jazz and classical. Hell, he made an album with The Roots this year. The word “chameleon” is often used to describe Costello, and rightly so, yet he’s the same guy, with the same voice, the same glasses, the trademark suits and fedoras. If there is any venue in Ithaca where time can, for a little over two hours, at least, slow down and where the man himself can open up, it is our very own State Theatre, where Costello played a solo set Thursday night courtesy of Dan Smalls Presents. Turns out Elvis Costello is not only a virtuosic performer but also a gracious, funny guy eager to look back on his roots, music history and the popular enigma he has erected in his name.

A jumbo-sized “On Air” sign idled by stage right before the show began. There was little other ornamentation up there, save for an intimidating number of guitars (I counted five). My eyes wandered over the State Theatre’s walls, ceilings and lamps, soaking in their history. Not long after a beaming Costello, sans opener, took the stage at 8 p.m. and the “On Air” sign lit up, he made sure to applaud his surroundings. “I’m making an effort to play all the old vaudeville theaters,” he said humbly, reminiscing about when he first visited America and made sure to see all the monuments: “The St. Louis Arch, the Empire State Building … and Ithaca.” “Rock and roll was invented here in Ithaca, you know,” he quipped later in the night, “concocted in a science lab here in Cornell, before anyone wanted it.” A genuine appreciation for our town and his audience buoyed any dry sarcasm, which could explain why this sold-out crowd greeted every song with some of the loudest, most passionate ovations I have ever heard.

He earned it. From the first song, My Aim Is True’s “Welcome to Working Week,” Costello radiated excitement. On “King Horse,” he toyed with pedal reverb and stuck all the requisite high notes and then some. His voice held strong to the end, although he called on audience participation now and then. At times, the call-and-response echoed the scatting of Cab Calloway — as during his performance of “America Without Tears,” where he approached something like delirium with complicated doo-wop and trills. When covering The Beatles’ “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” he egged everyone on to really shout the “Hey!” that precedes the eponymous chorus — he seemed so happy to perform a song he has clearly loved since childhood. Just to balance the mood, perhaps, he got the crowd to reiterate, “Now I’m dead … I was scared,” a bunch of times in “God’s Comic.” This call-and-response got louder and louder and, by song’s end, felt more cathartic than macabre.

If the back-and-forth is any indication, Costello hosted an atypically intimate night of music and chatting about music. “This is a socio-political survey,” he announced early on, “about the last [50 to 70 years] of history and my place in it.” A proven legend like Elvis Costello can spout as many self-aggrandizing boasts as he wants, as far I’m concerned, yet this quote turned out to be a wordy precursor to a selfless and sentimental examination of his family and influences. In between a Nat King Cole cover, “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home,” and “Ghost Train,” he joked about his late father, a musician who “looked like a hippie” or Peter Sellers from What’s New Pussycat? (think Velma from Scooby Doo). His dad once booked him a gig as a backup guitarist before he even knew how to play. Costello improvised, going crazy on air guitar to the befuddlement of his older audience. He actually learned how to play guitar, of course, and, in those Born to Run days, he wanted nothing more than to be Bruce Springsteen. This idealism produced “Radio Soul,” a highlight of the evening and a much more romantic precursor to the scathing hit “Radio Radio.” This reflection granted Costello an opportunity to weigh in on the power of music, which he believes mixes internal emotions with the drama of melody and dynamics to create something uniquely empathetic. Given the evidence, I don’t think he could find one naysayer for miles around.

When his narrative arrived at his grandfather, Costello worked the audience like a seasoned comic, with speculation about how his ancestor was too “finely dressed” for a trumpet player: he must have been a smuggler, too. This levity segued into talk of the Great Depression and “Jimmie Standing in the Rain,” the strongest and most heartrending song of the night. The ache of his voice as he sang that borrowed last line, “I’m your pal/Brother, can you spare me a dime?” away from his microphone lingered in the air before being swept up by exuberant cheers from every soul in attendance. A similar vibe informed “Alison,” which he sang with little movement and his hat tilted down. He hushed his guitar to let his melismatic vocals take over. In such a charged, nostalgic atmosphere, that oft-repeated line, “I’m not gonna get too sentimental …” revealed its true colors.

By the second encore (thats right, second), Costello took requests with a loud, red, light-up “Requests” sign. A tender rendition of “Tripwire” on electric guitar morphed into a wild “(What’s So Funny ’bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” which ended in a carnal loop of guitar feedback. Costello met multiple standing ovations with a bow and quick retreat back to the guitar or, by the end, keyboard, holding a finger up in the hair to indicate “Just one more.” He actually followed up with two more, ending on the somber ballad “The Puppet Has Cut His Strings,” which reaffirmed worked more to reaffirm the pathos of the second-act songs than the comic, pub-like feel of the first act. We got close to the man, we laughed with him, we exchanged compliments. By the end, that internal artistry reclaimed its hold, bringing the mood down while keeping our spirits high. Elvis Costello shared something special with us Thursday, something complete. But he, like every true genius, left the stage a puzzle unsolved.

[Man out of Time]

YouTube recording of "God's Comic":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se99EAb69DE

MOOT

[docinwestchester]

Audio on Dime:

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-deta ... ?id=472443