Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes, Cary NC, 14 June '09

[johnfoyle]

http://www.newraleigh.com/articles/arch ... oka-booth/

Jedidiah blogs -


Thursday, March 19, 2009
Music
OMG! Elvis Costello Coming to Koka Booth in Cary

Holy Dark Rimmed Glasses Batman! Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes are coming to Cary’s Koka Booth Amphitheatre on Sunday June 14th, 2009. Wow! This is one of the biggest musical catches of the year. Take that DPAC! I don’t know where to stop with exclamation points!!! Elvis Costello!

Tickets go on Sale March 27th at 10am (or March 26th at 10am with the password AMERICAN...shhhh)

http://www.boothamphitheatre.com/

[pophead2k]

Great venue for Elvis on the symphony tour, resulting in one of the best shows and bootlegs from that series. Must admit, I wish he was playing at the DPAC (the spanking new Durham Performing Arts Center) as the sound there is amazing, it is much closer to my house, AND the weather won't be a factor. Still, excited about this!

[sweetest punch]

Tickets: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0E004 ... orcatid=60

[pophead2k]

Got my lawn seats yesterday!

[verbal gymnastics]

I guess Elvis won't be seeing me and Mrs VG on our anniversary then. Unless...

[pophead2k]

Do it.

[verbal gymnastics]

Do you think Mrs VG will mind being at home with only Mini VG for company whilst I swan off to America to see EC? And it would be a shame to go all that way and only see one show...

I would love to go as the chances of seeing the Sugarcanes in the UK are highly unlikely. He really hates the UK now doesn't he?

[johnfoyle]

Anyone here going?

[pophead2k]

As noted, I'll be there and will definitely make a setlist.

[kilyuradeo]

For Sale: ONE Elvis Costello Ticket *3rd ROW FROM STAGE*

Just looking to get back what I paid for the ticket through ticketmaster
Can ship (for $4) or meet at the show or on the weekend of the show

FLOOR Section 3, DEAD CENTER -- Row C, 3rd ROW FROM STAGE

Jeff
201 655 8314

[blureu]

Clay Aiken to join the band on Sunday! You read it here first

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/beat/chan ... clay-aiken

http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/1564211.html

http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/1564211-p2.html

[pophead2k]

A very enjoyable show and a great audience in Cary tonight. Not a single call-out for 'rock and roll' and the vast majority did not leave early. Several standing ovations, including for some of the new material. Elvis' voice was rough, but not bad in any way. He didn't shy away from any of the notes. They only did one encore, but it was a long one. The sound was terrific and the acoustics at this venue are excellent.

Mystery Train
All Time Doll
Tonight the Bottle Let me Down
Down Among the Wine and Spirits
Blame it on Cain
Our Little Angel
Femme Fatale
I Felt the Chill
Delivery Man (excellent version!)
The Butcher Boy
Indoor Fireworks
Hidden Shame
Condemned Man
?? cover of something ?? (something about wine, prison, etc......)
Friend of the Devil
She Handed me a Mirror
Everyday I Write the Book (best version ever!)
She was No Good
Little Palaces
Complicated Shadows
Brilliant Mistake
Red Cotton
Crooked Line
Red Shoes
Sulphur to Sugarcane
Alison/He'll Have to Go
The Race is On
Changing Partners (short version, but excellent)
PLU
Five Little Words

This setlist might not be 100% accurate- I was keeping track on my phone, which died just before Sulphur to Sugarcane. I was disappointed that we didn't get American Without Tears or How Deep is the Red, but the band sounded fantastic, the harmonies were exquisite, and it was a great night.

[spooky girlfriend]

God love him for singing songs from KOA. This may be the tour I've been waiting on. . .

Thanks for the update, pophead! I'm Nashville bound tomorrow!

[bronxapostle]

yes, if you missed COSTELLO SINGS AGAIN CONFEDERATES 1986...this is as close as it gets! ENJOY!

[blureu]

Review with photos:

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/beat/elvi ... pringsteen

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/multi/elv ... rt-in-cary

It was a wonderful evening. Well worth the 4hr drive for me. I'm not sure either of the cover that Elvis and Jim sang together on one mic. The crowd went wild for the two unreleased songs. Wonder if the Imposters will record them?

[sweetest punch]

Brilliant Mistake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-v-gKOc39M

[sweetest punch]

EDIWTB + Complicated Shadows + Red Shoes + Sulphur To Sugarcane + PLU: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbxUQ0TFG_w
All Time Doll + Our Little Angel + Indoor Fireworks + EDIWTB: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4LFv6b5UaU

[sweetest punch]

I Felt The Chill: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9AwlmXKbbo

[sweetest punch]

http://www.indyweekblogs.com/scan/2009/ ... -for-cary/

Live: Costello goes country for Cary

Quick: What do Loretta Lynn, The Velvet Underground, The Grateful Dead and the Anthology of American Folk Music have in common? Sunday night in Cary, Elvis Costello gave them all the cover treatment during a 30-song tour de force with his new all-star bluegrass string band, the Sugarcanes.

Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, Costello’s successful and mostly seamless new record, marked the occasion for the evening. As such, he played nearly every track off the album, accompanying them with Nashville versions of older hits and a jukebox collection of eclectic covers, all the while importing his New Wave sneer into soulful, country balladry. In many ways, the concert felt more like a Folkways-meets-Nuggets compilation—Costello serving as guest curator—than the showcase of a prolific songwriter.

The open space (and, with a thin crowd of 2,000, there was plenty of it) and pitch-perfect acoustics of Koka Booth Amphitheatre proved an ideal setting for such ambitious range: Wearing a black suit and sipping from a teacup, Costello joked with the audience between tracks and encouraged his six-piece backing band with praise-laden introductions. Following his lead, the Sugarcanes weaved through decades of material, presenting finely tuned takes on a broad spectrum of musical history.

Three songs from 1977’s My Aim Is True made the cut, including a rollicking version of “Blame It on Cain” that substituted syncopated picking and upright bass for a backbeat snare. A mandolin-laced treatment of “Allison” featured an additional harmony and a triumphantly strummed ending in place of the original’s soft fadeout. Costello cooled the feverish number “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” to a Meters-paced strut, translating the original’s guitar work into a front-and-center hook courtesy of Stuart Duncan’s fiddle. Despite the absence of drums or lead electric (the closest thing was a slide guitar, played by Jerry Douglas), the band managed to preserve the originals through an entirely different idiom.

Less surprisingly, 1986’s King of America—which, like Sugarcane, was produced by T-Bone Burnett and steeped in acoustic folk traditions—made several appearances throughout the night. Costello reproduced “Indoor Fireworks,” “Little Palaces” and “Brilliant Mistake” with the grown-in maturity that he reached for but didn’t fully inhabit 20 years ago. A straight-ahead take on “Our Little Angel” lost the nervous subtlety of the original, but Costello’s voice commanded, and improved upon, King of America’s ballads. It felt like the album was written for this moment, when Costello could lead a folk band with the precision and wisdom of a well-worn session veteran.

Costello tipped his hat toward other people’s classics, too, from the Harry Smith-captured folk song “The Butcher’s Boy,” which received an Irish jig interlude, to the Velvets’ “Femme Fatale,” which added upbeat southern twang in place of flat notes and big-city ennui. Other cover highlights included The Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil,” and Elvis Presley’s “Mystery Train,” written by Junior Parker and Sam Phillips.

Center stage, though, was Sugarcane, a motley assembly in and of itself, with fragments of an operetta about Hans Christian Andersen, songs for Johnny Cash, a Loretta Lynn collaboration, and an overriding obsession with unrequited love, guilt and imprisonment. Continuing with the prisoner’s thoughts of “Hidden Shame,” which Costello wrote for Cash, Costello debuted a new song called “The Condemned Man,” which featured the line: “The Judge says, ‘Son by this time tomorrow, you won’t be alive/Soon we’ll be giving you 10,000 volts’/and I said, ‘Make that 25.’”

“It’s not on record; you have to go to the woods to hear it,” Costello told the ecstatic Cary audience. That Costello could bring a crowd of thousands to their feet to cheer on the story of a death-row inmate—let alone a Danish fairytale author, abolitionist circus leader, crooked politician and all the other characters that inhabit his most recent work—is a testament to his staying power. Even as his style shifts and influences multiply and become manifest, his words still aim true for anyone willing to listen.

[sweetest punch]

Little Palaces: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fEBNtban4g

[sweetest punch]

She Was No Good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsYNsyHs3nI
The Delivery Man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF4TQyPHwJw
Our Little Angel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fu4lOKflHpE