Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Pretty self-explanatory
johnfoyle
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Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by johnfoyle »

Who's going?
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Man out of Time
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by Man out of Time »

I shall be there, somewhere in Row 6, Ticketmaster permitting. I shall come armed with something to throw, should Russell Crowe make another "surprise" appearance.

MOOT
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by verbal gymnastics »

Ditto.
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
Wolverinefan
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by Wolverinefan »

I'll be there with my friend. I just rang the RAH and booked the concert tour and meal package and while I was on the phone I asked if there was any chance of upgrading our tickets. The lady was very helpful and managed to get us front row tickets for no extra cost!!! She said they are sort of lease type tickets, reserved for "returning members" and if they are not required then they become available for sale. So I thought it was worth posting this info here, in case anyone else might like to try for better tickets.

Right now I feel like the luckiest EC fan alive and my friend, who has all EC's songs on vinyl, is gong to be over the moon when I tell her. She doesn't get much luck so I'm so pleased I could swing this for us both. :D
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by verbal gymnastics »

And she might get to go in the cage!
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by Wolverinefan »

I don't think either of us would be brave enough to go up on stage with EC, but we are SO EXCITED now! The icing on the cake is that the weather is looking good for our jaunt up to London, so my friend is under orders to ensure I am supplied with ice cream while we take in some sunshine in Hyde Park, en route to RAH! :D Well, it's the least she can do, as this is the second time I've somehow managed to get us front row tickets for EC! (She knows how the system works... I do her a good turn... she owes me FOREVER!!! Ha ha, only joking!)

Russell Crowe... mmm, I rate him as an actor, but having seen him "sing" in Les Mis (a ghastly experience, not easily forgotten), I can understand you being less than keen on the idea of him getting up on stage again! :lol: Wonder if there'll be anyone famous in the audience tomorrow? At this rate I'm going to have trouble sleeping tonight, I'm already hyper now!
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by sulky lad »

There be VG, Moot and myself for starters- all other celebrities will be paled onto insignificence in our presence !!!
Little Fool
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by Little Fool »

When I read Wolfie's upgrade post I thought I'd give it a go at Bristol as although my seats were good a friend hadn't fared quite so well. We went into the box office a couple of hours before the show and he was moved forward 14 rows !! Not quite front row, but certainly a vast imprvement for him.
Good luck to all those going tonight, (last night was epic), hope you all have as much fun at RAH as I did.
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by And No Coffee Table »

Thanks to Nick for the pic of the wheel.

Image

Today is Dixie De La Fontaine's birthday. I expect it to be celebrated onstage like last year.

First five songs posted to the wiki site:

01. Welcome To The Working Week
02. No Action
03. Strict Time
04. Accidents Will Happen
05. Next Time 'Round

Twitter:
Back at the RAH for more Elvis. Four songs in and all different from last night. #costello
Help! There's been a terrible murrderrr. Elvis c murders his own songs at the Royal Albert Hall
Accidents can happen and Oliver's Army @ElvisCostello @RoyalAlbertHall http://pic.twitter.com/NgCIWraY2e
A lady called Alison has just spun the wheel and won, wait for it, I Can't Stand Up! #elviscostello
Alison goes into Suspicious Minds.
@ElvisCostello mate seriously. Get an engineer that can hear. #TooLoudAtTheAlbertHall
Costello roll out Tramp The Dirt Down "while there's still some of those bastards around"
‪@ElvisCostello‬ Great night at the RAH an perhaps the best ending to a gig I have ever seen. A real treat !
Elvis Costello played 2 1/2 hours; Steve Nieve doing 'Peace, Love & U.' on the organ of the Royal Albert Hall. Amazing birthday present :-)
Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt of Everything But The Girl hated the show so much they walked out after less than an hour!
Disaster. @ben_watt and I have left the Albert Hall. HATED every minute of it. Woe :-(
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by And No Coffee Table »

Setlist from wiki:

01. Welcome To The Working Week
02. No Action
03. Strict Time
04. Accidents Will Happen
05. Next Time 'Round
Detectives vs. Hoover Factory Jackpot - spin 1
06. Watching The Detectives / Help Me
07. Oliver's Army - spin 2
08. Human Hands - spinner's choice
Happy Jackpot - spin 4
09. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
10. High Fidelity
11. Radio, Radio
12. Alison including Suspicious Minds - spinner's request
13. Almost Blue - spin 3
King's Ransom Jackpot - spin 5
14. Brilliant Mistake
15. A Slow Drag With Josephine
16. Jimmie Standing In The Rain / Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
17. Suit Of Lights
18. Sleep Of The Just
19. Everyday I Write The Book / Happy Birthday To You for Dixie De La Fontaine
The Hammer of Songs
20. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
21. Waiting For The End Of The World
22. Beyond Belief
23. I Want You
Encore 1
24. Dr. Watson, I Presume
25. Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head
26. Shipbuilding
27. London's Brilliant Parade
28. Tramp The Dirt Down
Encore 2
29. Heart Of The City
30. Pump It Up
Joker Jackpot - spin 6
31. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?- including Singin' In The Rain instrumental snippet, Steve Nieve on pipe organ
Heats101
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by Heats101 »

What an absolutley belting selection of songs especially for the King's Ransom Jackpot.
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migdd
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by migdd »

An incredible setlist! The King's Ransom jackpot is a stellar collection with both Suit of Lights and Sleep of the Just. Glad to see the wide variety of songs being played each evening. If only transatlantic airfare wasn't so damned expensive!
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by bronxapostle »

migdd wrote:An incredible setlist! The King's Ransom jackpot is a stellar collection with both Suit of Lights and Sleep of the Just. Glad to see the wide variety of songs being played each evening. If only transatlantic airfare wasn't so damned expensive!
i'd be there with ya!!! i miss my spinning songbook USA shows!
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by docinwestchester »

Suit Of Lights

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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by And No Coffee Table »

It's surprising that the "Clowns & Fiddlers" banner remained on the wheel, but the previous night's fiddler did not reappear. What would they have done if "Clowns & Fiddlers" had been spun? "Clown Strike" and "Clowntime Is Over"?
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by Azmuda »

And No Coffee Table wrote:It's surprising that the "Clowns & Fiddlers" banner remained on the wheel, but the previous night's fiddler did not reappear. What would they have done if "Clowns & Fiddlers" had been spun?
Perhaps BibleCode Sundays were possible guests but didn't make it.
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by sheeptotheslaughter »

I saw that Everything But The Girl departed early.

Not sure what they expected, seems they were not happy with the spinning songbook or 'the mousetrap' as they called it.

Not that I have anything against either of them. Due to the wonders of Twitter I have spoke boxing with Ben and got gardening advice from Tracey
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by sulky lad »

Don't know what Ben and Tracey wanted/expected but from row 16 in the arena this sounded fantastic ! Definitely in my top 5 Costello shows and I've seen a few. The pace of the show was great, The Imposters played their socks off and Elvis' voice was magnificent ! Whether this was a reaction to last night, though the last 40 minutes was blondingly good as well, but this absolutely blew it out of the water. Elvis seemed more focused and his rapport with the people who came up on stage and generally with the audience and his geniality helped move things along . The setlist helped immensely because the "hits" were nicely spaced between hardcore fans favourites. Great to see Elvis' reaction when Lindsay asked for Human Hands - he seemed to appreciate someone not asking for the usual choices and Davey was superb in this and indeed has been all tour, his fades on Home Is Anywhere and during the "dub" sections of Detectives are quite sublime. Steve played the pipe organ in PLU and provided a solo that had the hairs sticking up the back of my neck, and. Oth my father and brother are Grade 8 church organists so I recognise sublime organ playing technique. He also kept throwing music phrases into the mix, a little bit of Happy Birthday in the intro Elvis did for Dixie, a bit of Stalin Malone in Detectives and Singing In the Rain during PLU and at the end of Detectives. As for Pete, he reminds me of my 87 yeard father !!! Dad still plays church organ but only sings along when he feels like it !However Pete's energy levels are amazing and he drove several songs on to add to the intensity. Elvis' playing also seemed to hit new heights and he didn't doodle so much in solo parts which made the songs more impactful. Jimmie was again fantastic though I could certainly listen to that solo. On a very personal imho sort of way, I wonder why he puts Broter Can You Spare A Dime at the end because this astounding piece of writing doesn't need any suffix , it's a masterpiece in it's own right . Of course after this show, tonight will inevitably be a bit of a comedown unless Glenn Tillbrook guests and they perform Trust from start to finish including TTDD followed by Stand Down Margaret ! Final thought , at one stage all the centre stalls were seated except for one person doing looney dancing - guess which board member that was :lol: :roll:
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by sheeptotheslaughter »

Sulky I would trust your review above EBTG any day.
Perhaps he was too happy for them. Frank Skinner once said he prefers Elvis when he is miserable.

There is a distinct lack of celebrity guests this time round.
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by verbal gymnastics »

sheeptotheslaughter wrote:I saw that Everything But The Girl departed early.

Not sure what they expected, seems they were not happy with the spinning songbook or 'the mousetrap' as they called it.
Meanwhile in the parallel universe...

This show was possibly the best (along with Birmingham in 2012) Spinning Songbook Show I have ever seen. The sound was fantastic (I wonder if this was in part due to the first appearance of the separating screens onstage) and I was 10 rows back dead in line with Elvis who was probably wondering who the bad sole dancer in front of him was whilst he was singing Waiting til the end of the world (especially as everyone else in the arena section was sitting down!!!). The show was well paced; good jackpot spins; Elvis in fine form (the newly ennobled Lord Napoleon Dynamite); London's Brilliant Parade ("Because we sometimes forget we're home"); our very own PaulB's partner Lindsay being picked by Elvis (and having to reluctantly leave her drink with Paul!). The show also benefitted from almost exclusively female spinners. Perhaps Elvis was put off by the conduct of the male spinners the previous night :lol:

Elvis definitely appreciated Lindsay asking for Human Hands given that most people ask for more familiar tunes.
sheeptotheslaughter wrote:There is a distinct lack of celebrity guests this time round.
The show benefitted from the stop/start of introducing guests. I for one will not complain if there are no guests tonight. Even if Paul Weller and Billy Bragg joined him tonight it would be difficult to top this show!

Dixie/Melissa - I'm sure you will never read this but I hope you had a lovely birthday. There can't be many people who work on their birthday in the same way :lol:
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/el ... lbert-hall

Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Royal Albert Hall

The Beloved Entertainer surges through the hits and selections from the Spinning Songbook

by Kimon Daltas
Thursday, 06 June 2013

Comebacks may be all the rage but Elvis Costello just keeps on going. It's the third year running that he has taken his band The Imposters on the Revolver Tour, featuring The Spectacular Spinning Songbook: a giant carnival wheel of songs which audience members are brought on stage to spin and dictate the set list.

Not everything is left to chance, however, and the evening began with a rollicking medley of “Welcome to the Working Week”, “No Action”, “Strict Time”, “Accidents Will Happen” and “Next Time Round”. In what was the middle of three consecutive nights at the Albert Hall, you might expect a certain amount of going through the motions, but Costello’s energy and engagement were there right from the off.

Backing band members Steve Nieve (piano, Hammond organ, keyboards), Pete Thomas (drums) and Davey Faragher (bass, backing vocals) were with him every step of the way. Though Costello has become a prolific collaborator and musical chameleon over the years, he has long-term relationships with these particular musicians, especially Nieve and Thomas, with whom he has been working on and off for over 30 years. Nieve’s tendency to overcomplicate things is an acquired taste, but it is also such a recognisable part of the Elvis Costello sound that you’d miss him if he were replaced by an obedient session musician. As for Thomas’s contribution, especially on drum-led songs like “No Action” and “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea”, it is hard to overstate – he had it in 1978 and he’s still got it now.

Costello’s voice seems to be holding up just fine too. He may be pushing 60 but, towards the end of a set lasting two and a half hours, he was still able to produce an anguished performance of “I Want You” and come back for a series of encores which included the seminal “Shipbuilding” and finished up with the riotous “Pump it Up” and “Peace, Love and Understanding”. He sounded indestructible throughout.

There was certainly an element of the Greatest Hits show to the proceedings, but a few newer tracks made it in, such as “A Slow Drag With Josephine” and “Jimmie Standing in the Rain” from his latest country-inspired album National Ransom, and they held their own in the mix.

There were quirks, not least a panoply of guitars and guitar sounds, not all of which gelled where they were deployed, and a few which could do with being retired altogether. The twangy Fender Jaguar which fitted “Watching the Detectives” perfectly was a disaster when power-strummed through “Oliver’s Army”, for instance, while the distorted acoustic guitar was pretty unpleasant in all contexts.

All in all, it was a crowd-pleasing show with no genuine surprises but plenty of highlights and no duds. If anything, it suffered from being too polite, a middle-aged crowd in an all-seated venue being a tough nut to crack atmosphere-wise. Perhaps in future visits to his home town, he may consider alternative venues, and won’t find himself having to exhort people to stand.


Meanwhile...


https://twitter.com/tracey_thorn/status ... 0330268672

Tracey Thorn

@tracey_thorn

Today I have seen two 5 star reviews of the gig I walked out of last night. It's almost as though people are different or something isn't it
sulky lad
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by sulky lad »

Yeah,makes you wonder eh Tracey ?
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by docinwestchester »

01. Welcome To The Working Week
02. No Action
03. Strict Time
04. Accidents Will Happen
05. Next Time 'Round

Finally changed up the opening! Very nice.

Also, I just noticed the crafty little wordless vocal part that EC sings at the end of Suit of Lights (starting at 2:40):


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John
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by John »

The three opening tracks from his first three albums in the first four.
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters play RAH, London 5 June '13

Post by Wolverinefan »

The RAH is a beautiful building and the tour was quite enjoyable, made more so by the fact that we were able to see and hear EC rehearsing at various points along the way. :) We had a nice meal beforehand in the Cafetiere, a bit overpriced for what you get, but quite tasty.

Now to the main event...

I'm sorry to say I didn't enjoy this concert half as much as I thought I would, so my review is going to be quite negative compared to others. :(

We had first row seats, but not in the stalls. We were at the front of block G, which is to the left of the stage, near to the cage. When we first arrived at our seats we thought they were in a good position and we'd have a close up view of Elvis' right side, plus views of the dancing. However, unfortunately there was some kind of contraption rigged up, which looked like a bundle of microphones and maybe a camera, which stood at just the height to block out most of EC completely! Even worse, one of the stage lights was shining directly in our faces, so it turned out we had double trouble viewing EC. :cry:

The seats further to the left were vacant so we moved along to those, but the security guard got a bit anxious and said he'd have to call the ticketing manager to get our tickets officially changed. The manager came along and took us out to the corridor to discuss it, then said he'd look for some better seats for us. He walked us around the back and ended up giving us seats in a box right at the back... we were MILES away! When he came back and asked if we were happy we had to admit we weren't, as we'd travelled quite a way to see EC and had gone from close seats to distant seats. So, he moved us again... this time back to block G, but 4th row back. This felt a bit better as we didn't have the dazzling light in our eyes, but still the contraption blocked our view of Elvis. Finally we moved along the row a bit to get a better view, but there was another problem - the sound quality was just awful! We had quite a lot of echoes bouncing around and at times we could barely hear EC's voice at all! Such a shame, and when he did Oliver''s Army the whole thing sounded a real mess. So, part of me is not surprised that those people walked out, because the concert I was experiencing was nowhere near as good as previous times I'd seen EC.

To be honest, I had read previous comments about RAH having some accoustic problems, so maybe I should have known better. I don't think there was anything wrong with EC's voice, and interestingly when he stepped back and did a couple of things off mic he was pretty impressive, so I guess it was down to technical problems.

Now I'm a bit concerned about our Basingstoke seats, as once again we are left of stage, front row of side circle. I hope it's not going to be more of the same, sound-wise.

Little Fool - so pleased your friend got a good result with changing his seat. I'm beginning to wonder if I should do the same thing now, for Basingstoke. :?
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