The Revolver Tour will reach the Barbican Centre in York on 17 June 2013. Local press coverage is here:
ELVIS Costello is to bring his Spectacular Spinning Songbook to the York Barbican next year.
He will be wheeling his gigantic vaudevillian contraption up and down the country for 16 shows, including York on May 17, as well as one other Yorkshire date, Sheffield City Hall on May 8.
Costello has decided to stage a revolution once more following this year’s Revolver tour of Britain. In each show, the three-hour set list for Elvis and his band The Imposters is decided by the spinning of a wheel with myriad song titles displayed on it.
The Spectacular Spinning Songbook was first seen in 1986 on his Costello Sings Again tour.
The revived show visited the United States in 2011, where two April performances at the Wiltern Theatre, Los Angeles, were recorded for DVD and CD release as The Return Of The Spectacular Spinning Songbook.
Costello will be joined for next year’s concerts by Attractions’ keyboard player Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas plus bassist Davey Faragher.
Tickets will go on sale on Friday, September 7 at 9am online at bookingsdirect.com or on 0844 338 0000.
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/leisure/musi ... _Barbican/
Elvis' previous appearance at the venue was with The Attractions on 12 November 1994 on the Brutal Youth tour.
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Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
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Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
http://twitter.com/Fulfordflowers/statu ... 1699511297
We are very excited about doing flowers for @ElvisCostello in june @yorkbarbican 'its been a good year for the roses! Brilliant x
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/leisure/musi ... __June_17/
Elvis Costello, York Barbican, June 17
6th June 2013
Elvis Costello and his band The Imposters return to York later this month for a show in which the audience use his Spectacular Spinning Songbook device to select the songs
YORK awaits Elvis Costello and his Spectacular Spinning Songbook on June 17. In the meantime, Elvis has been doing one of his favourite things: relaxing in New York.
“The vibe is very mellow,” reasons the 58-year-old singer-songwriter.
The city he first addressed in his 1980 song New Amsterdam – New York’s former name – has been a sort of home to British-born Costello for the past nine years. He stays there when he is working, while the rest of his time is spent at home in Vancouver with his Canadian singer wife Diana Krall and their twin sons, Henry and Frank.
Now the boys, born at the end of 2006, are of primary school age, Costello and Krall have had to become a little more settled.
“They start first grade in September, so we can’t be pulling them out of school to go wherever,” he says. “Having both your parents as working musicians will mean a lot of travelling, but we have to be considerate. They’ll still get to come on the tour bus with me when I’m out and about. That’s got to be better than taking geography, right?”
Costello is typically busy in 2013, writing and recording songs for a new album, while once again working with master songwriter Burt Bacharach on a stage adaptation of Painted From Memory, their 1998 album. He hopes it will develop over the next 12 months and end up on stage in “the next few years”.
“We’re writing new songs, so it would nice to write songs for that. I’m also working long-term on a book of my own,” says Costello. “It’s not fiction, but it’s not non-fiction either. I’m not writing an autobiography. Everyone knows that story, everyone’s an expert, so I can only tell people what they don’t know.”
Before all that, Costello and his band The Imposters – the old Attractions’ drummer Pete Thomas and keyboard player Steve Nieve, plus Davey Faragher on bass – have been on the road since May 31 with his Spectacular Spinning Songbook.
They did the same last year, when the reception to the shows surprised everyone – especially Costello himself – so Elvis and band are back for a bigger trip that will last all of June and into July.
“We thought we’d just be able to go to the places we missed last spring,” says Costello. “We’re doing that, but the cities we played want to see us again too. The shows were brilliant last time around, the atmosphere at each really special, so we can’t wait to do it again.”
As the tour name would indicate, the Spinning Songbook concerts have a special feature: a giant wheel loaded with the names of 50 of Costello’s songs.
Each time a member of the audience is invited to spin the wheel, the band have to play whichever song it lands on.
There are showgirls on stage, and the lucky audience member can either stay up there in a cage to dance alongside the band – many do – or sit in a more relaxed area at the back and drink cocktails.
This has more in common with oldfashioned vaudeville than a standard rock concert, while the wheel serves up interesting combinations of songs, jettisoning the normal pacing of a planned set list.
“We have to be well-rehearsed, we have to have 50 songs in the pocket to even play the game,” says Costello.
“We’ve delved into the back catalogue a bit so I think we have about 150 we can choose from.
“The wheel’s fair, too, until we lean on it a bit when someone tells us it’s their wedding anniversary or something.
Mostly we let it be true and the wheel decides. Some songs have come up twice or even three times in a night.”
Naturally, there are gasps of anticipation when the wheel approaches any of Costello’s biggest hits – Oliver’s Army, Alison, Watching The Detectives, Everyday I Write The Book or Pump It Up. Often what would normally be a finale song or form part of an encore will be chosen at the top of a show.
“The wheel has made us play the older songs better, and we never know what to expect,” says Costello. “You have to drop into the darkest, most emotional songs without any preparation, and one of your favourites might not get chosen for five shows.”
He does, however, insist on playing Shipbuilding and Tramp The Dirt Down, the splenetic “prayer” from 1989’s album Spike that found Costello hoping he lived long enough to see the death of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher so that he could stamp on her grave.
Now that the Baroness has passed away, he feels slightly differently. “I have difficulty with this one,” he says. “Two of my family had dementia-related demises, so I would never wish that on my worst enemies. I have difficulty wishing ill on people, despite having written that song. I can’t celebrate.
“I could if it meant the death of her ideas, but they’re alive and well. That’s the difference here. There are few people in history you would wish death on, but there would be something pathetic, and beneath us, in celebrating the death of anyone.”
It is easy, he suggests, for songwriters to become self-important about their work but, with time, he has come to accept that whatever he writes will only affect certain people – normally the people who are listening anyway.
“Tramp The Dirt Down was never going to affect Norman Tebbit,” he says of the former Employment Secretary, who once told the unemployed to get on their bikes, as his father had done, and look for work. “It was never going to affect him because he was never going to listen to it. It wasn’t going to sway him and make him change his mind, and he’s still out there today, pontificating,” says Costello.
“There’s always this argument that these rich musicians don’t have the right to express what they feel. But yes, yes we do, we’re allowed to express ourselves.
“We’re not asking anything of anybody, and there are contradictions in songs that are about complicated issues. I wanted them to be there, because it wasn’t black and white. Nothing ever is.”
• Elvis Costello’s The Revolver Tour visits Sheffield City Hall on Saturday and York Barbican on June 17, 8pm. York tickets: £42.50 on 0844 854 2757 or yorkbarbican.co.uk
• AFTER Elvis Costello & The Attractions, then Elvis and The Brodski Quartet, The Confederates and The Imposters, here comes another Costello collaboration.
News has come from New York that Elvis Costello and Philadelphia hip-hop combo The Roots are to release the album Wise Up Ghost on the Blue Note Records label on Monday, September 16.
The existence of the record was revealed first by The Roots’ Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson as an aside during an interview with Billboard Magazine in January. A small number of test pressings were distributed as white labels on Record Store Day on April 20, paving the way for the full release later this year.
Most of the sessions took place in secret at Feliz Habitat Studios in the dead of night, while others were in plain sight at Costello’s Hookery Crookery Studios.
Elvis has described the record as “the shortest distance between here and there”, revealing it contains “both rhythm and what is read”. “?uestlove” says, only slightly less cryptically: “It’s a moody, brooding affair, cathartic rhythms and dissonant lullabies. I went stark and dark on the music, Elvis went ‘ham’ on some ole Ezra Pound s**t.”
No wonder the album’s British publicists, MBC, are settling for predicting “it promises to be one of the most unexpected and surprising releases of 2013”.
What is certain is the lineup of those involved in making Wise Up Ghost: Costello, the Roots Crew and friends, plus a guest vocal appearance on Cinco Minutos Con Vos by La Marisoul, lead singer of the Los Angeles group La Santa Cecilia.
The album was produced by long-time Roots associate, Steven Mandel together with Costello and “?uestlove”.
Fact File
• Elvis Costello was born Declan Patrick MacManus on August 25 1954 in Paddington, London.
• His father, Ross McManus, sang the theme to the Secret Lemonade Drinker adverts for R White’s Lemonade in the 1970s, while a teenage Costello provided the backing vocals.
• His father also was a trumpeter and bandleader and performed under the name Day Costello. Along with Elvis Presley, this provided the inspiration for Costello’s stage name.
• He has been married three times, and wed Grammy-winning Canadian singer and jazz pianist Diana Krall in 2003.
• He supports Liverpool FC, living in the city for most of the 1970s.
Charles Hutchinson charts his long relationship with Elvis
IT began with Red Shoes, thick Buddy Holly specs and a sneer. He wasn’t punk, he was New Wave, and he recorded his first album with a pick-up country band. It was instant attraction, and Elvis has never left the Hutchinson house since.
In a cupboard, to avoid the much-mocked alphabetical filing system, Hutchinson decided on a whim to file Elvis with Elvis, American Presley with Anglo-Irish Costello. They shared a propensity for weight increase and that cupboard shelf now groans under the weighty increase of ever more Elvis and Elvis albums.
One has been exploited with endless reissues since his untimely passing; the other has overseen the most comprehensive resurrection of any back catalogue, not once, not twice, but three times now with the most astute, acerbic sleeve notes to boot – and there is still room for further versions with DVDs.
The paths of the two Elvi pretty much crossed over when Presley died in 1977 and Elvis Lives was plastered across city walls as the Stiff Elvis became the living one on that insouciant record label.
Hutchinson has acquired every release since then, wherever Costello’s path his taken him, from Costello to Declan McManus to Napoleon Dynamite; from country covers to The Juliet Letters; from The Coward Brothers with T-Bone Burnett to Swedish mezzosoprano Anne Sofie Von Otter; from The Attractions and The Confederates to The Imposters and now Philadelphia hip-hop alchemists The Roots.
The melodic strike rate has dimmed since 1986’s double whammy of King Of America and Blood And Chocolate, but not one British post-punk musician, not even the new polymath Damon Albarn, can rival Costello for diversity and a desire to experiment.
Love songs, punk bile, soul ballads, drones, collaborations galore, he has done them all, and he has written the most potent political anthems – Pills And Soap, Peace In Our Time, Shipbuilding, Tramp The Dirt Down – of our times. He has even turned his hand to being a witty, insightful TV show host in America, as easily as he will spin his Spectacular Spinning Songbook at York Barbican on June 17.
Ironically, the one disappointment in Hutchinson’s long love affair with our Elvis – as well as Elvis over there – was Costello’s last appearance in York on November 12 1994, a Barbican night when he pumped it up way too loud.
Here’s to this year’s model. It’s great to have Elvis back in the building.
Elvis Costello, York Barbican, June 17
6th June 2013
Elvis Costello and his band The Imposters return to York later this month for a show in which the audience use his Spectacular Spinning Songbook device to select the songs
YORK awaits Elvis Costello and his Spectacular Spinning Songbook on June 17. In the meantime, Elvis has been doing one of his favourite things: relaxing in New York.
“The vibe is very mellow,” reasons the 58-year-old singer-songwriter.
The city he first addressed in his 1980 song New Amsterdam – New York’s former name – has been a sort of home to British-born Costello for the past nine years. He stays there when he is working, while the rest of his time is spent at home in Vancouver with his Canadian singer wife Diana Krall and their twin sons, Henry and Frank.
Now the boys, born at the end of 2006, are of primary school age, Costello and Krall have had to become a little more settled.
“They start first grade in September, so we can’t be pulling them out of school to go wherever,” he says. “Having both your parents as working musicians will mean a lot of travelling, but we have to be considerate. They’ll still get to come on the tour bus with me when I’m out and about. That’s got to be better than taking geography, right?”
Costello is typically busy in 2013, writing and recording songs for a new album, while once again working with master songwriter Burt Bacharach on a stage adaptation of Painted From Memory, their 1998 album. He hopes it will develop over the next 12 months and end up on stage in “the next few years”.
“We’re writing new songs, so it would nice to write songs for that. I’m also working long-term on a book of my own,” says Costello. “It’s not fiction, but it’s not non-fiction either. I’m not writing an autobiography. Everyone knows that story, everyone’s an expert, so I can only tell people what they don’t know.”
Before all that, Costello and his band The Imposters – the old Attractions’ drummer Pete Thomas and keyboard player Steve Nieve, plus Davey Faragher on bass – have been on the road since May 31 with his Spectacular Spinning Songbook.
They did the same last year, when the reception to the shows surprised everyone – especially Costello himself – so Elvis and band are back for a bigger trip that will last all of June and into July.
“We thought we’d just be able to go to the places we missed last spring,” says Costello. “We’re doing that, but the cities we played want to see us again too. The shows were brilliant last time around, the atmosphere at each really special, so we can’t wait to do it again.”
As the tour name would indicate, the Spinning Songbook concerts have a special feature: a giant wheel loaded with the names of 50 of Costello’s songs.
Each time a member of the audience is invited to spin the wheel, the band have to play whichever song it lands on.
There are showgirls on stage, and the lucky audience member can either stay up there in a cage to dance alongside the band – many do – or sit in a more relaxed area at the back and drink cocktails.
This has more in common with oldfashioned vaudeville than a standard rock concert, while the wheel serves up interesting combinations of songs, jettisoning the normal pacing of a planned set list.
“We have to be well-rehearsed, we have to have 50 songs in the pocket to even play the game,” says Costello.
“We’ve delved into the back catalogue a bit so I think we have about 150 we can choose from.
“The wheel’s fair, too, until we lean on it a bit when someone tells us it’s their wedding anniversary or something.
Mostly we let it be true and the wheel decides. Some songs have come up twice or even three times in a night.”
Naturally, there are gasps of anticipation when the wheel approaches any of Costello’s biggest hits – Oliver’s Army, Alison, Watching The Detectives, Everyday I Write The Book or Pump It Up. Often what would normally be a finale song or form part of an encore will be chosen at the top of a show.
“The wheel has made us play the older songs better, and we never know what to expect,” says Costello. “You have to drop into the darkest, most emotional songs without any preparation, and one of your favourites might not get chosen for five shows.”
He does, however, insist on playing Shipbuilding and Tramp The Dirt Down, the splenetic “prayer” from 1989’s album Spike that found Costello hoping he lived long enough to see the death of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher so that he could stamp on her grave.
Now that the Baroness has passed away, he feels slightly differently. “I have difficulty with this one,” he says. “Two of my family had dementia-related demises, so I would never wish that on my worst enemies. I have difficulty wishing ill on people, despite having written that song. I can’t celebrate.
“I could if it meant the death of her ideas, but they’re alive and well. That’s the difference here. There are few people in history you would wish death on, but there would be something pathetic, and beneath us, in celebrating the death of anyone.”
It is easy, he suggests, for songwriters to become self-important about their work but, with time, he has come to accept that whatever he writes will only affect certain people – normally the people who are listening anyway.
“Tramp The Dirt Down was never going to affect Norman Tebbit,” he says of the former Employment Secretary, who once told the unemployed to get on their bikes, as his father had done, and look for work. “It was never going to affect him because he was never going to listen to it. It wasn’t going to sway him and make him change his mind, and he’s still out there today, pontificating,” says Costello.
“There’s always this argument that these rich musicians don’t have the right to express what they feel. But yes, yes we do, we’re allowed to express ourselves.
“We’re not asking anything of anybody, and there are contradictions in songs that are about complicated issues. I wanted them to be there, because it wasn’t black and white. Nothing ever is.”
• Elvis Costello’s The Revolver Tour visits Sheffield City Hall on Saturday and York Barbican on June 17, 8pm. York tickets: £42.50 on 0844 854 2757 or yorkbarbican.co.uk
• AFTER Elvis Costello & The Attractions, then Elvis and The Brodski Quartet, The Confederates and The Imposters, here comes another Costello collaboration.
News has come from New York that Elvis Costello and Philadelphia hip-hop combo The Roots are to release the album Wise Up Ghost on the Blue Note Records label on Monday, September 16.
The existence of the record was revealed first by The Roots’ Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson as an aside during an interview with Billboard Magazine in January. A small number of test pressings were distributed as white labels on Record Store Day on April 20, paving the way for the full release later this year.
Most of the sessions took place in secret at Feliz Habitat Studios in the dead of night, while others were in plain sight at Costello’s Hookery Crookery Studios.
Elvis has described the record as “the shortest distance between here and there”, revealing it contains “both rhythm and what is read”. “?uestlove” says, only slightly less cryptically: “It’s a moody, brooding affair, cathartic rhythms and dissonant lullabies. I went stark and dark on the music, Elvis went ‘ham’ on some ole Ezra Pound s**t.”
No wonder the album’s British publicists, MBC, are settling for predicting “it promises to be one of the most unexpected and surprising releases of 2013”.
What is certain is the lineup of those involved in making Wise Up Ghost: Costello, the Roots Crew and friends, plus a guest vocal appearance on Cinco Minutos Con Vos by La Marisoul, lead singer of the Los Angeles group La Santa Cecilia.
The album was produced by long-time Roots associate, Steven Mandel together with Costello and “?uestlove”.
Fact File
• Elvis Costello was born Declan Patrick MacManus on August 25 1954 in Paddington, London.
• His father, Ross McManus, sang the theme to the Secret Lemonade Drinker adverts for R White’s Lemonade in the 1970s, while a teenage Costello provided the backing vocals.
• His father also was a trumpeter and bandleader and performed under the name Day Costello. Along with Elvis Presley, this provided the inspiration for Costello’s stage name.
• He has been married three times, and wed Grammy-winning Canadian singer and jazz pianist Diana Krall in 2003.
• He supports Liverpool FC, living in the city for most of the 1970s.
Charles Hutchinson charts his long relationship with Elvis
IT began with Red Shoes, thick Buddy Holly specs and a sneer. He wasn’t punk, he was New Wave, and he recorded his first album with a pick-up country band. It was instant attraction, and Elvis has never left the Hutchinson house since.
In a cupboard, to avoid the much-mocked alphabetical filing system, Hutchinson decided on a whim to file Elvis with Elvis, American Presley with Anglo-Irish Costello. They shared a propensity for weight increase and that cupboard shelf now groans under the weighty increase of ever more Elvis and Elvis albums.
One has been exploited with endless reissues since his untimely passing; the other has overseen the most comprehensive resurrection of any back catalogue, not once, not twice, but three times now with the most astute, acerbic sleeve notes to boot – and there is still room for further versions with DVDs.
The paths of the two Elvi pretty much crossed over when Presley died in 1977 and Elvis Lives was plastered across city walls as the Stiff Elvis became the living one on that insouciant record label.
Hutchinson has acquired every release since then, wherever Costello’s path his taken him, from Costello to Declan McManus to Napoleon Dynamite; from country covers to The Juliet Letters; from The Coward Brothers with T-Bone Burnett to Swedish mezzosoprano Anne Sofie Von Otter; from The Attractions and The Confederates to The Imposters and now Philadelphia hip-hop alchemists The Roots.
The melodic strike rate has dimmed since 1986’s double whammy of King Of America and Blood And Chocolate, but not one British post-punk musician, not even the new polymath Damon Albarn, can rival Costello for diversity and a desire to experiment.
Love songs, punk bile, soul ballads, drones, collaborations galore, he has done them all, and he has written the most potent political anthems – Pills And Soap, Peace In Our Time, Shipbuilding, Tramp The Dirt Down – of our times. He has even turned his hand to being a witty, insightful TV show host in America, as easily as he will spin his Spectacular Spinning Songbook at York Barbican on June 17.
Ironically, the one disappointment in Hutchinson’s long love affair with our Elvis – as well as Elvis over there – was Costello’s last appearance in York on November 12 1994, a Barbican night when he pumped it up way too loud.
Here’s to this year’s model. It’s great to have Elvis back in the building.
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
Is anyone here going to this?
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verbal gymnastics
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Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
No but I'd love to!
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
http://www.mobypicture.com/user/stevens ... sizes/full
"Clowns & Fiddlers," "New Lace Sleeves," "Telescope," "Poor Napoleon," and "Flutter & Wow" have been replaced by "Numbers," "Tiny Steps," "Accidents Will Happen," "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," and "You Bowed Down."
"Clowns & Fiddlers," "New Lace Sleeves," "Telescope," "Poor Napoleon," and "Flutter & Wow" have been replaced by "Numbers," "Tiny Steps," "Accidents Will Happen," "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror," and "You Bowed Down."
Update:And No Coffee Table wrote:http://twitter.com/Fulfordflowers/statu ... 1699511297
We are very excited about doing flowers for @ElvisCostello in june @yorkbarbican 'its been a good year for the roses! Brilliant x
It was fantastic meeting Elvis costello, he loved his flowers. What an amazing guy. Very excited about his show tonight at york barbican
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
Again?!
Fab night seeing Elvis Costello & a special moment for a young couple. Elvis played their song She , he proposed on stage & she said yes.
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verbal gymnastics
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Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
And completely impromptu no doubt.
I guess we'll hear about the power of the wheel for the final shows...
I guess we'll hear about the power of the wheel for the final shows...
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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docinwestchester
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Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
And of his recent joining of the ministry...verbal gymnastics wrote:And completely impromptu no doubt.
I guess we'll hear about the power of the wheel for the final shows...
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
Elvis Costello and the Imposters – York Barbican, Monday 17th June 2013 June 17, 2013
Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 11:35 pm
Tonight I saw Elvis Costello for the first time since I saw him in London in 1977. I was struck by the sheer volume of classic songs he has recorded in a career spanning close to 40 years. I love that he often strays from the path trodden by many contemporaries by recording a country album, recording with the Brodsky Quartet and producing the Specials. He arrived at York as part of his 13 Revolver Tour with a show featuring the Spectacular Spinning Song Wheel.
He opened the set with a blast of four or five loud and powerful power pop songs culminating in the magnificent “Radio Radio“. The principle of the wheel is that members of the audience are picked to spin the wheel and the band play the song that is randomly selected. Tracey and Carol were given a storming version of “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea”.
Later a Catherine and Alex took to the stage and when asked her favourite song Catherine replied “She” the Charles Aznavour song. Now that is a song I really dislike so I was very pleased when Mr Costello said “I fucking hate that song”. However Alex and Catherine spun the Joker and were allowed to choose their favourite. After Costello had sung “She” for them they danced in the cage podium for a while. As they were about to leave the stage Costello’s assistant, the Mysterious Josephine whispered to Elvis and young Alex and Catherine took the microphone for Alex to propose to his beau live in front of thousands of people. He did a great job. Catwoman, who accompanied me to the gig, was in tears! Oh and Alex had a yes from Catherine. If they are reading this I would like to wish them all the best.
My favourite song of the evening was a stupendous “Watching The Detectives” which included Costello walking through the crowd singing with a radio mic. He is clearly a great showman and he is gifted in stage craft. The band are very tight and are made up of Drummer Pete Thomas and keyboard maestro Steve Nieve formerly of the Attractions and Davey Faragher on bass. I was very pleased that they played two classic anti Thatcher songs; “Shipbuilding” and “Tramp The Dirt Down”. The latter received a massive cheer I am pleased to say. He showcased his true and pure vocal talent by stepping away from the mic at the end of “Jimmie Standing In The Rain” for a few lines of “Brother Can You Spare A Dime“
The show kicked off at 8 o’clock and it was nearly 10.30 before the house lights came back on. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better the band returned after a minute or two off stage for an astounding encore. Kicking off with “Alison” and closing with “Pump It Up” and “(What’s So Funny About) Peace Love And Understanding” whilst finding time for “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” and “High Fidelity”. The encore provided a fabulous climax for the excellent go-go dancer too.
This show sits easily in the top 5 gigs I have ever seen in my nearly 40 years of gig going. I will definitely go to see Elvis again and you should too. Trust me you will not regret it! Oh and by the way, none of the pics or videos in this post were taken by me. I can’t be arsed to keep getting my camera out at gigs, I’d rather enjoy the show!
Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 11:35 pm
Tonight I saw Elvis Costello for the first time since I saw him in London in 1977. I was struck by the sheer volume of classic songs he has recorded in a career spanning close to 40 years. I love that he often strays from the path trodden by many contemporaries by recording a country album, recording with the Brodsky Quartet and producing the Specials. He arrived at York as part of his 13 Revolver Tour with a show featuring the Spectacular Spinning Song Wheel.
He opened the set with a blast of four or five loud and powerful power pop songs culminating in the magnificent “Radio Radio“. The principle of the wheel is that members of the audience are picked to spin the wheel and the band play the song that is randomly selected. Tracey and Carol were given a storming version of “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea”.
Later a Catherine and Alex took to the stage and when asked her favourite song Catherine replied “She” the Charles Aznavour song. Now that is a song I really dislike so I was very pleased when Mr Costello said “I fucking hate that song”. However Alex and Catherine spun the Joker and were allowed to choose their favourite. After Costello had sung “She” for them they danced in the cage podium for a while. As they were about to leave the stage Costello’s assistant, the Mysterious Josephine whispered to Elvis and young Alex and Catherine took the microphone for Alex to propose to his beau live in front of thousands of people. He did a great job. Catwoman, who accompanied me to the gig, was in tears! Oh and Alex had a yes from Catherine. If they are reading this I would like to wish them all the best.
My favourite song of the evening was a stupendous “Watching The Detectives” which included Costello walking through the crowd singing with a radio mic. He is clearly a great showman and he is gifted in stage craft. The band are very tight and are made up of Drummer Pete Thomas and keyboard maestro Steve Nieve formerly of the Attractions and Davey Faragher on bass. I was very pleased that they played two classic anti Thatcher songs; “Shipbuilding” and “Tramp The Dirt Down”. The latter received a massive cheer I am pleased to say. He showcased his true and pure vocal talent by stepping away from the mic at the end of “Jimmie Standing In The Rain” for a few lines of “Brother Can You Spare A Dime“
The show kicked off at 8 o’clock and it was nearly 10.30 before the house lights came back on. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better the band returned after a minute or two off stage for an astounding encore. Kicking off with “Alison” and closing with “Pump It Up” and “(What’s So Funny About) Peace Love And Understanding” whilst finding time for “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” and “High Fidelity”. The encore provided a fabulous climax for the excellent go-go dancer too.
This show sits easily in the top 5 gigs I have ever seen in my nearly 40 years of gig going. I will definitely go to see Elvis again and you should too. Trust me you will not regret it! Oh and by the way, none of the pics or videos in this post were taken by me. I can’t be arsed to keep getting my camera out at gigs, I’d rather enjoy the show!
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bronxapostle
- Posts: 4915
- Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:27 pm
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
cool...HITLERS!
Elvis Costello & The Imposters
York, England
June 17th, 2013
Overture - featuring the former Mother Superior of Our Lady of Perpetual Torment, Dixie De La Fontaine
I Hope You're Happy Now
Heart Of The City
Mystery Dance
Radio Radio
The Spectacular Spinning Songbook - with The Mysterious Josephine - Your Guide From Your Place In The Stalls To Your Place In The Stars
Bedlam - Spin 1
Chelsea - Spin 2
"Joker" - Spin 3
She
Accidents Will Happen - IMPROMPTU
You Little Fool - IMPROMPTU
The Beat - IMPROMPTU
Slow Down - Marriage Proposal
"Joanna" Jackpot - Spin 4
Shot With His Own Gun
I Still Have That Other Girl
Oliver's Army - IMPROMPTU
The Hammer Of Songs
Watching The Detectives
"Numbers" Jackpot - Spin 5
Less Than Zero
Two Little Hitlers
One Bell Ringing
Veronica - Vanessa's Request
Shipbuilding - IMPROMPTU
Interlude
A Slow Drag With Josephine
Jimmie Standing In The Rain
Tramp The Dirt Down
Finale
Alison
Strict Time
I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
High Fidelity
Pump It Up
Peace, Love and Understanding
Elvis Costello & The Imposters
York, England
June 17th, 2013
Overture - featuring the former Mother Superior of Our Lady of Perpetual Torment, Dixie De La Fontaine
I Hope You're Happy Now
Heart Of The City
Mystery Dance
Radio Radio
The Spectacular Spinning Songbook - with The Mysterious Josephine - Your Guide From Your Place In The Stalls To Your Place In The Stars
Bedlam - Spin 1
Chelsea - Spin 2
"Joker" - Spin 3
She
Accidents Will Happen - IMPROMPTU
You Little Fool - IMPROMPTU
The Beat - IMPROMPTU
Slow Down - Marriage Proposal
"Joanna" Jackpot - Spin 4
Shot With His Own Gun
I Still Have That Other Girl
Oliver's Army - IMPROMPTU
The Hammer Of Songs
Watching The Detectives
"Numbers" Jackpot - Spin 5
Less Than Zero
Two Little Hitlers
One Bell Ringing
Veronica - Vanessa's Request
Shipbuilding - IMPROMPTU
Interlude
A Slow Drag With Josephine
Jimmie Standing In The Rain
Tramp The Dirt Down
Finale
Alison
Strict Time
I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
High Fidelity
Pump It Up
Peace, Love and Understanding
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
wheel spin / Shot With His Own Gun - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab_0QAR62Gs
Watching The Detectives - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1RkVYIKFO4
Watching The Detectives - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1RkVYIKFO4
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
Elvis tweeted some photos this afternoon -
@ImposterSpeaks: Standing on a platform at York station
Followed a hour later by -
@ImposterSpeaks: Standing on a platform...etc... #iknewitwouldcometothis #iblamedrbeeching #onyerbike
@ImposterSpeaks: Standing on a platform at York station
Followed a hour later by -
@ImposterSpeaks: Standing on a platform...etc... #iknewitwouldcometothis #iblamedrbeeching #onyerbike
-
DeathWearsABigHat
- Posts: 145
- Joined: Tue Mar 29, 2005 5:05 pm
- Location: Cheshire, UK
- Contact:
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
seeing the Numbers jackpot on the wheel, I thought "great, got to be 13 steps lead down, love that song 
" but no. 
Not as great as Liverpool last week but still a brilliant gig though.
Here it is anyway....
" but no. Not as great as Liverpool last week but still a brilliant gig though.
Here it is anyway....
"trust the wizards, here we go" http://www.trustthewizards.com
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
video:
wheel spin -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5_4TB9tkCg
She -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oAnbjh468
marriage proposal -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFRiKpdtsws
wheel spin -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5_4TB9tkCg
She -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1oAnbjh468
marriage proposal -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFRiKpdtsws
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/leisure/musi ... _Barbican/
Review: Elvis Costello & The Imposters, The Revolver Tour, York Barbican
By Charles Hutchinson
19th June 2013
ELVIS Costello has long been the master of reinvention.
Sometimes this has come through working with Elvis’s initially dismissive producer Billy Sherrill on a country covers albums, or Paul McCartney, or Burt Bacharach, or Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter, or this year the hip-hop veterans The Roots.
At other times, it has involved shaking up his live set, switching from The Attractions, to solo; adding the TKO Horns; then breaking away with The Confederates; back to The Attractions and onwards to The Imposters, essentially The Attractions’ keyboard professor Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas with a different bassist, Davey Faragher.
The Revolver Tour gives new wind to Costello’s Spectacular Spinning Songbook, which he first span at the Royal Albert Hall when he was still having hits.
It is a canny show, one that plays to those who know Oliver’s Army, Alison and Pump It Up but also allows him to slip surprises such as Strict Time and a latter-day gem like Jimmie Standing In The Rain into the two and a half hours.
The decision to have standing room as well as seating may have robbed him of a sell-out but was vindicated by the show’s format of punchy, breakneck oldies at the start and finish, and the walkabout Spinning Songbook in between.
Costello switched between front man in patent leather shoes and silver trilby and bantering, witty master-of-ceremonies mode as Napoleon Dynamite, in top hat and cane, with dancer Dixie Delafonte in a cage and the Mysterious Josephine as his assistant in picking audience members.
This they did by searchlight, or wandering into the crowd, to invite them to spin that wheel for a song title or a theme or a Joker free choice or the chance to hit the Golden Hammer for “Songs Of Sneer”, “Ladies Excuse Me” or “The Hits Of Tomorrow”.
When it settled on Joanna, it was the cue for Nieve to excel on piano, especially when one audience member asked for Shot With His Own Gun, a startling, long-forgotten chill off the 1981 album Trust.
Those chosen audience members could lounge on stage with a drink or dance in the cage or… as Elvis promised, the wheel had powers of love so powerful that dapper Alex proposed to party-dressed Catherine. Luckily, the wheel never settled on Accidents Will Happen.
Has Costello ever been in better voice, especially on Shipbuilding? And what dignity he brought to Tramp The Dirt Down, not glorying in the dementia death of bete noir Margaret Thatcher but vehement in saying the song’s political sentiments still stood.
Springsteen, Young, and now Costello; what a summer for rock’s evergreen heavyweights this is turning out to be.
Review: Elvis Costello & The Imposters, The Revolver Tour, York Barbican
By Charles Hutchinson
19th June 2013
ELVIS Costello has long been the master of reinvention.
Sometimes this has come through working with Elvis’s initially dismissive producer Billy Sherrill on a country covers albums, or Paul McCartney, or Burt Bacharach, or Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter, or this year the hip-hop veterans The Roots.
At other times, it has involved shaking up his live set, switching from The Attractions, to solo; adding the TKO Horns; then breaking away with The Confederates; back to The Attractions and onwards to The Imposters, essentially The Attractions’ keyboard professor Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas with a different bassist, Davey Faragher.
The Revolver Tour gives new wind to Costello’s Spectacular Spinning Songbook, which he first span at the Royal Albert Hall when he was still having hits.
It is a canny show, one that plays to those who know Oliver’s Army, Alison and Pump It Up but also allows him to slip surprises such as Strict Time and a latter-day gem like Jimmie Standing In The Rain into the two and a half hours.
The decision to have standing room as well as seating may have robbed him of a sell-out but was vindicated by the show’s format of punchy, breakneck oldies at the start and finish, and the walkabout Spinning Songbook in between.
Costello switched between front man in patent leather shoes and silver trilby and bantering, witty master-of-ceremonies mode as Napoleon Dynamite, in top hat and cane, with dancer Dixie Delafonte in a cage and the Mysterious Josephine as his assistant in picking audience members.
This they did by searchlight, or wandering into the crowd, to invite them to spin that wheel for a song title or a theme or a Joker free choice or the chance to hit the Golden Hammer for “Songs Of Sneer”, “Ladies Excuse Me” or “The Hits Of Tomorrow”.
When it settled on Joanna, it was the cue for Nieve to excel on piano, especially when one audience member asked for Shot With His Own Gun, a startling, long-forgotten chill off the 1981 album Trust.
Those chosen audience members could lounge on stage with a drink or dance in the cage or… as Elvis promised, the wheel had powers of love so powerful that dapper Alex proposed to party-dressed Catherine. Luckily, the wheel never settled on Accidents Will Happen.
Has Costello ever been in better voice, especially on Shipbuilding? And what dignity he brought to Tramp The Dirt Down, not glorying in the dementia death of bete noir Margaret Thatcher but vehement in saying the song’s political sentiments still stood.
Springsteen, Young, and now Costello; what a summer for rock’s evergreen heavyweights this is turning out to be.
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
http://thenorthernline.com/2013/06/23/e ... june-2013/
“Gavotte, garrotes, Cotillions and slow Arabesques”: Elvis Costello & The Imposters, York Barbican, 17 June 2013
By Liam Finn
“Rock & Roll was invented in Hartlepool”, declared Elvis Costello at the York Barbican on Monday night. One thing’s for certain: there’s no one around who can do Rock & Roll quite like him.
The 13 Revolvers Tour is Costello’s second in as many years in his native land, contrary to his threat that he would never return to Blighty. The show is a revival of one first conceived in the eighties – forty songs spanning four decades on a giant wheel, with audience members invited to spin, improvising the set list as the gig progresses.
Proceedings commence with I hope you’re happy now before a race through Nick Lowe’s Heart of the City, Mystery Dance, and the Saturday Night Live-immortalised Radio Radio.
Then Napoleon Dynamite, Costello’s 1986 alter-ego, makes his first appearance, dragging people from the crowd on stage to spin the wheel for the next song, (I don’t want to go to) Chelsea.
The second spinner requests Charles Aznavour’s She. EC declares that he “fucking hates the song”, but acquiesces, noting that hiring him as a romantic crooner for the Notting Hill soundtrack made as much sense as casting George Clooney as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The spinner then gets down on one knee to propose to his girlfriend on stage. (Thank God she said yes, otherwise love-struck Pete Thomas might have been crying into his drum kit.)
The two-and-a-half-hours show is outstanding. This a man whose thirty-odd albums range from punk to country, R&B to jazz, chamber music to opera. He brings this musical encyclopaedia from the studio to the stage, with I still have that other girl from the glorious Painted from Memory album (written and recorded with Burt Bacharach), sitting perfectly alongside songs such as Veronica, one of his compositions with Paul McCartney from a quarter of a century ago.
Steve Nieve showed how he’s probably the greatest keyboardist in British popular music, pounding the ivories on Shot with his own gun and later underlining the tragic irony in Shipbuilding. Davey Faragher is a superb bass guitarist, adding the backing vocals Bruce Thomas rarely offered prior to The Attractions’ evolution into The Imposters. And the number of superlatives necessary to describe Pete Thomas’s drumming would seem improbable unless witnessed live.
Best moment? Tramp the Dirt Down, Costello’s imagining of Margaret Thatcher’s death. Remarkably, he managed to retain humanity in a song imploring God to preserve him long enough to witness her demise: Elvis said he could never wish another human being to suffer, drawing comparisons with the passing of his father, Ross MacManus (of the Joe Loss Orchestra fame). Yet the caveat was that the lyrics’ bitterness remains horribly relevant. Applicable clichés included “shiver down spine”.
With the Pyramid Stage beckoning next Saturday, Elvis is still King.
“Gavotte, garrotes, Cotillions and slow Arabesques”: Elvis Costello & The Imposters, York Barbican, 17 June 2013
By Liam Finn
“Rock & Roll was invented in Hartlepool”, declared Elvis Costello at the York Barbican on Monday night. One thing’s for certain: there’s no one around who can do Rock & Roll quite like him.
The 13 Revolvers Tour is Costello’s second in as many years in his native land, contrary to his threat that he would never return to Blighty. The show is a revival of one first conceived in the eighties – forty songs spanning four decades on a giant wheel, with audience members invited to spin, improvising the set list as the gig progresses.
Proceedings commence with I hope you’re happy now before a race through Nick Lowe’s Heart of the City, Mystery Dance, and the Saturday Night Live-immortalised Radio Radio.
Then Napoleon Dynamite, Costello’s 1986 alter-ego, makes his first appearance, dragging people from the crowd on stage to spin the wheel for the next song, (I don’t want to go to) Chelsea.
The second spinner requests Charles Aznavour’s She. EC declares that he “fucking hates the song”, but acquiesces, noting that hiring him as a romantic crooner for the Notting Hill soundtrack made as much sense as casting George Clooney as the Hunchback of Notre Dame. The spinner then gets down on one knee to propose to his girlfriend on stage. (Thank God she said yes, otherwise love-struck Pete Thomas might have been crying into his drum kit.)
The two-and-a-half-hours show is outstanding. This a man whose thirty-odd albums range from punk to country, R&B to jazz, chamber music to opera. He brings this musical encyclopaedia from the studio to the stage, with I still have that other girl from the glorious Painted from Memory album (written and recorded with Burt Bacharach), sitting perfectly alongside songs such as Veronica, one of his compositions with Paul McCartney from a quarter of a century ago.
Steve Nieve showed how he’s probably the greatest keyboardist in British popular music, pounding the ivories on Shot with his own gun and later underlining the tragic irony in Shipbuilding. Davey Faragher is a superb bass guitarist, adding the backing vocals Bruce Thomas rarely offered prior to The Attractions’ evolution into The Imposters. And the number of superlatives necessary to describe Pete Thomas’s drumming would seem improbable unless witnessed live.
Best moment? Tramp the Dirt Down, Costello’s imagining of Margaret Thatcher’s death. Remarkably, he managed to retain humanity in a song imploring God to preserve him long enough to witness her demise: Elvis said he could never wish another human being to suffer, drawing comparisons with the passing of his father, Ross MacManus (of the Joe Loss Orchestra fame). Yet the caveat was that the lyrics’ bitterness remains horribly relevant. Applicable clichés included “shiver down spine”.
With the Pyramid Stage beckoning next Saturday, Elvis is still King.
-
sulky lad
- Posts: 2427
- Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:21 pm
- Location: Out of the kitchen,she's gone with the wind
Re: Elvis / The Imposters, Barbican, York, 17 June 2013
Heard a rumour about this being on DVD somewhere - has anyone heard of or seen a copy ? ! 