Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Pretty self-explanatory
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johnfoyle
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Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by johnfoyle »

Who's going?
johnfoyle
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by johnfoyle »

Looking forward to accounts
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And No Coffee Table
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by And No Coffee Table »

01. The Loved Ones
02. ...And In Every Home
03. Accidents Will Happen
04. You'll Never Be A Man
05. Tears Before Bedtime
06. Moods For Moderns
07. Shabby Doll
08. Human Hands
09. Green Shirt
10. Go Tell (Your Quiet Sister)
11. Watching The Detectives
12. The Long Honeymoon
13. This House Is Empty Now
14. Indoor Fireworks
15. Kid About It
16. I Wanna Be Loved
17. King Horse
18. You Little Fool
19. Pidgin English
Encore 1
20. Alison - EC, Kitten Kuroi & Briana Lee
21. Shot With His Own Gun - EC & Steve Nieve
22. Talking In The Dark - EC & Steve Nieve
23. Almost Blue - EC & Steve Nieve
24. Uncomplicated
25. Beyond Belief
26. Man Out Of Time
Encore 2
27. Town Cryer - including The Bells
28. Everyday I Write The Book
29. Pump It Up
30. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?

Great to hear so many songs I hadn't experienced live before. My favorite performance of the night was "I Wanna Be Loved."
SoulForHire
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by SoulForHire »

My favorite was Almost Blue. Just sublime. Dedicated to Diane, who apparently is in Milwaukee (coincidentally where I used to live before moving out west). Second favorite was This House is Empty Now. Good match for the mellow vibe of crowd, which didn't seem to wake up until near the end of the show. I usually don't care for Alison, but this version is one of best arrangements I've heard him do of it. Pretty slow and rocky start to the show, possibly due to his guitar being drowned out by the vocals in the mix early on. But the ship was righted by at least mid show. And it never ceases to amaze me how Pump It Up and PLC still bring down the house after all these years
johnfoyle
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by johnfoyle »

http://www.ocregister.com/2017/06/05/el ... um=twitter

Elvis Costello takes fans into his ‘Imperial Bedroom’ for a terrific show at the Greek Theatre in L.
By PETER LARSEN

June 5, 2017

Elvis Costello and the Attractions released “Imperial Bedroom” in 1982 and so much did I love that album that I convinced the guy at the record store to sell me the promo poster off his wall, a photo of the singer-songwriter under which his name was printed next to an image of the album cover beneath which a one-word question – “Masterpiece?” – was posed.

I thought so then and after seeing Elvis Costello & the Imposters perform nearly all of it at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday I still do. “Imperial Bedroom,” Costello’s seventh studio album, marked a move toward a more ornate style of songwriting and production, a step beyond “Trust” from a year earlier, and a signal of the restless musical heart and soul he’d explore in the more than 20 albums that have followed.

As Costello noted near the finish of the 30 songs he scattered across two and a half hours, his debut record, “My Aim Is True,” was recorded in 24 hours, while for the featured album here “we booked ourselves 12 weeks in the studio, and we thought, ‘Now we’re really living!'”


Costello and the Imposters – keyboardist Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas from the Attractions, bassist Davey Faragher the longtime replacement for Attraction Bruce Thomas – went on stage just after 8 p.m., opening the night with “The Loved Ones” while many fans were still making their way into the venue through long lines at the security checkpoints. After “… And In Every Home” he paused to chat with the crowd for a moment, the first of many cheerfully sardonic asides.

“Every other song I felt like singing tonight felt like a satirical choice,” Costello said in a subtle political jibe. ” ‘Waiting For The End Of The Word,’ ‘Brilliant Mistake, ‘American Gangster Time.'”

And this one, too, he noted, as the band tore into “Accidents Will Happen,” into which the band next raced, the crowd reacting with cheers as the much-loved “Armed Forces” track took off.

Early on the sound mix seemed a little muddy, with the guy next to me shouting, “Turn that guitar up!” several times, which after a beautiful piano-driven take on “You’ll Never Be A Man” and a re-arranged version of “Tears Before Bedtime,” slowed down to a sultry jazz vibe, miraculously happened midway through “Shabby Doll.”

“Not all the songs on the record are the sad, miserable songs that I know you’ve been looking forward to – there are a couple of love songs,” Costello noted by way of introducing “Human Hands,” one of the sunnier songs from “Imperial Bedroom.”

Nearly all of the set was drawn from Costello’s first decade as a recording artist. The only numbers more recent than “Uncomplicated” from 1986’s “Blood & Chocolate” were “This House Is Empty Now” from “Painted By Memory,” the 1998 album he did with Burt Bachrach, and a strong new song that seems to be titled “(Go Tell Your) Quiet Sister.”


His debut, “My Aim Is True,” saw its two biggest hits performed, “Watching The Detectives,” which arrived as moody and ominous as ever midway through the opening set, Costello singing it beneath the green and purple glow of the stage lights, vintage film noir movie posters with femme fatale taglines – “She lit a fuse inside men!” – on the video screen.

“You ever wonder what happens to people after the song is over?” he asked at the close of “Detectives.” “It crossed my mind. I got to thinking about those people I wrote back in 1977.”

“The Long Honeymoon,” which followed, is a sequel of sorts to “Watching The Detectives,” the girl still watching the TV, though it’s just snow, no picture, the boy long gone.

Unlike some of his recent stops in Southern California here Costello added a pair of backing vocalists, Kitten Kuroi and Briana Lee, whose voices added lovely touches to not just the “Imperial Bedroom” numbers but others including “I Wanna Be Loved,” with it’s lounge-y soul and piano melody, and especially to “Alison,” one of Costello’s best, which was sung by him and the two women with just the accompaniment of his electric guitar.

The Impostors remain a tight live act — Nieve and Thomas have played together for four decades now, and new guy Faragher has been in the band for 15 – but Nieve really deserves to be singled out for the amazing work he did on Sunday. After “Alison” had opened the first encore Nieve joined Costello for a pair of duo performances, “Shot With His Own Gun” and “Talking In The Dark,” both of which placed Costello’s croon atop Nieve’s dazzling piano. The two then played a third duet, Costello now on guitar, a gorgeous version of “Almost Blue,” which Costello modestly described as one of the most enduring “Imperial Bedroom” tracks because “my gal sang it” – his gal being wife Diana Krall – “and I’m going to send it out to her in Milwaukee.”

The night wrapped up with a second encore, which included Costello’s first Top 40 single, “Everyday I Write The Book,” and then a blazing take on “Pump It Up” straight into “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding,” his longtime finale, and the feel-good farewell to a master and his masterpiece of a show.
johnfoyle
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by johnfoyle »

http://variety.com/2017/music/reviews/c ... 202454535/

Elvis Costello Goes Baroque to the Future With ‘Imperial Bedroom’ Show

Chris Willman

JUNE 5, 2017


While the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” is making headlines, a slightly lesser hysteria is greeting the 35th anniversary of Elvis Costello’s “Imperial Bedroom” album, which the artist is celebrating with a tour themed around the 1982 release. If the two anniversaries are not being commemorated with quite the same level of publicity, they are not completely unrelated events. A kingly gig Sunday night at L.A.’s Greek Theatre offered cause to consider a little bit of shared DNA.

The singer was certainly indulging his Beatles fanboy side when he hired the engineer of “Sgt. Pepper,” Geoff Emerick, to produce “Imperial Bedroom.” (At Sunday’s concert, Costello also mentioned in passing running into Paul McCartney at the recording studio, a few years before they started writing songs together.) And just as the Beatles were putting their moptop side away once and for all with “Pepper,” Costello was making a break from his fast-and-furious beginnings and going for baroque with “Bedroom” — even if some of his followers, seemingly taking a cue from the Woody Allen fans who preferred the early, funny stuff, never completely got over favoring Elvis’ early, primitivist stuff. As Costello told the Greek crowd, he’d gone from making his first album in 24 hours to spending 12 weeks in the studio: “We thought, ‘Now we’re really living — we’ve hit the big time.’ We hired an orchestra for Steve to arrange for. We hired a harpsichord; we had no idea what to do with it. We bought an accordion, and none of us could play it, so it took three of us to wrestle it into submission.”

One big difference (well, among others): The Beatles basically gave up live performance so they could make albums like “Sgt. Pepper.” Costello had neither the luxury nor the inclination for that, so he had the burden of recreating the “Imperial” songs in concert — something that worked fine with the rockier numbers, like “Beyond Belief” and “Man Out of Time,” and also the easiest to strip down, “Almost Blue,” to name the three songs that have remained set staples. But a lot of others basically went unplayed for three and a half decades, and not just because of the difficulty of bringing an orchestra on the road or adding a harpsichordist to the Attractions, but probably also because so many of the album’s songs had him layering his own vocal lines atop one another in a way that’s impossible to duplicate live.

The beauty of an “Imperial Bedroom” tour for fans is that he’s had to find a way to do all those songs live. (Well, not “had to” — Costello is not one to be bound by the strict conventions of the full-album show, so he continues to omit “Boy With a Problem,” a song he has such a problem with that he’s apparently never done more than a lone verse of it in concert, ever. Why give in now?) The solution wasn’t to hire additional musicians — he was accompanied, as usual, by keyboardist Steve Nieve, drummer Pete Thomas and bassist Davey Faragher — but to add a pair of female background singers (Kitten Kuroi and Brianna Lee), something he tried and abandoned right after the 1983 “Punch the Clock” album and tour. These two are able to add, for instance, the rapid-fire iterations of “little fool, little fool” — in, obviously, “You Little Fool” — that Costello handled by himself via multi-tracking in ’82. And that addition alone makes all the “Bedroom” songs sound fuller, without the need to bring out any accordionists after all.


The backup singers also stick around for most of the non-“Bedroom” material, too (which, again, defying the norms of the full-album tour, is interspersed in the set amid the “Imperial” songs). They have the biggest impact on an encore of “Alison,” which Costello typically does solo nowadays, but which now has the women gathered around him at the front mic for a choral effect. They also bring a near-gospel touch to bigger finishes on some of the other numbers — like the opening “The Loved Ones,” with its repeated coda refrain of “P.P.S. I l-o-v-e y-o-u,” or the set-closing “Pidgin English,” which not coincidentally ends with the background singers reiterating “P.S., I love you.” Not every fan will cotton to suddenly hearing female voices on nearly every tune — some wags have wondered if he picked it up as a contagion when he toured with Steely Dan a couple years back — but it adds a warmer tone that most veteran Costello tourgoers will welcome as a different flavor.

Costello is resisting getting political this time around, as opposed to when he wrapped up a brief east coast wing of the tour last November at New York’s Beacon by pointedly opening those shows with the fascist-themed “Night Rally.” For this west coast resumption, he merely alluded to current events by quipping, “Every song we thought of singing tonight sounded like the beginning of a terrible satirical routine: ‘Waiting for the End of the World,’ ‘American Gangster Time,’ ‘Brilliant Mistake’ — and this one,” then launching into “Accidents Will Happen.” There seemed to be a significant sociopolitical undertow to the one new song he performed (and the only post-1986 number), “Go Tell (Your Quiet Sister),” although it was hard to tell for sure on a noisy first listen.

This “Imperial Bedroom” tour is the least frantic-feeling of all the tours Costello has done since he reconfigured his backup band the Attractions into the Imposters. In recent years they’ve played nearly relentless sets as if wanting to come off as the world’s most sophisticated garage band; on this one, there are more frequent moments where they settle for just sophisticated, due to the increased presence of mid-tempo album tracks like “Human Hands,” and maybe the civilizing influence of the women on stage.

The show still ends furiously enough, with the expected “Pump It Up” and “Peace, Love and Understanding,” and it’s hardly any worse for having a few more stately moments than usual. The “Imperial Bedroom” songs were all worth the wait to hear, in some cases, for the first time since the tour behind that album, recalling an especially fertile writing period in a studio where “you could look out into the center of London, down there into Oxford Circus, and see people coming home from work late at night when we were recording. You didn’t know whether they were heartbroken or happy and on their way to the greatest night of their life, and I tried to put some of those things in the songs.” Looking out into the Greek, he surely saw a whole lot of happy.
Neil.
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by Neil. »

FFS, this tour has GOT to come to Britain, surely!?! Am gagging for it!
SoulForHire
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by SoulForHire »

These 2 reviews really nailed it. My sentiments regarding this show mirror both reviews
SoulForHire
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by SoulForHire »

Wanted to add one minor quibble. There were two large video screens at each side of the stage. However, during the whole show, both screens exclusively showed just the Barney Bubbles-esqe art. It would have been nice if they at least occasionally showed close ups of the band or Elvis, given that the large screen behind the band also always had the art. I mean, no one in the venue had problems seeing the main art screen, but most did not have a close view of the man and the band in action,
MOJO
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by MOJO »

This tour isn't backed by a label, is it? I enjoyed all the low budge qualities of the show. Especially the Target/CostCo fans blowing the mist around the stage. Love it! I'm all about campy/tongue-in-cheek presentations. What a gas!!! (My key lime pie breaks helped enhance the NorCal show. No doubt).

Have a great summer, ya'll! And don't forget to chill the f**k out. Toodles - MOJO
Last edited by MOJO on Mon Jun 05, 2017 11:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
MOJO
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by MOJO »

Ok, maybe someone on the IB tour didn't scope out the proper fan and screen displays... Such as this:

https://vimeo.com/94459739

Nonetheless, Summer still rolls on... Elvis rules! This show is right up there with the wheel tour. Let loose and have fun.
sweetest punch
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by sweetest punch »

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_59366 ... 940169cda3

Elvis Costello: Rocks The Greek Theater On His Imperial Bedroom Tour

Elvis Costello’s blazing streak from the English Punk Rock and New Wave scene in the late 1970s into rock super stardom in the 80s started with his debut album My Aim Is True. His songs were like electric shocks to the body. He was alternative rock before it officially existed. He was his own genre of existential outrage; self hating and self loving his misery and triumphs. His violent poetic streaks across 12 bars or rock and roll seemed to bring a new excitement and expression to a medium already bored of the punk scene it created. When he famously changed his performance during his live set on SNL in 1982 to an unapproved song and was banned from the show for years, his ‘bad boy’ reputation was cemented in stone. He created a lyrical code that is now normal expression for intellectual rock and roll for bands like Cold Play, Muse, The Black Keys, One Republic, Imagine Dragons and up through Fall Out Boy, Linkin’ Park and Panic at the Disco.

Last night at the Greek Theater, Elvis Costello proved he’s still an original. He rocked the stadium for two hours and coursed through 30 songs that centered around his pinnacle album; Imperial Bedroom. An emotionally complex and verbally dexterous expression, musically playful, creative, catchy and punishing. Released in 1982 the album was listed 38th on Rolling stones 100 great albums of the 80s, and voted best album of the year on The Village Voice Pop and Jazz critic poll. It’s what some feel is the best album in a career that spans over 20 other albums, a career that includes collaborations with Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach, and playing stadiums as well as at the White House for President Obama.

Hearing Imperial Bedroom live was still as much of a thrill as it was hearingthe genre bending album back then. Performing on a simple stage the “Imposters” were long time Costello collaborator Steve Nieve at a red grand piano and multiple keyboards, drummer Pete Thomas (from the Attractions), and bassist Davey Faragher (“The newest member of the band for only 15 years!” Costello remarked later) and two back up vocalists vocalists, Kitten Kuroi and Briana Lee. They started just after 8pm as crowds were still lined up to get into the stadium and many were still rushing to their seats.

The crowd cheered his arrival at the foot lights as Costello jump started “Loved Ones” and “In Every Home” and “Tears Before Bedtime.” After which he came to the mike for frequent anecdotes and amusing insights into his work throughout the evening. His love of performance and crafting of his art was infectious. In many songs his guitar filled the auditorium with his unmistakable distorted vibrant solos belaying his punk roots.

Talking about Imperial Bedroom he said:”We made this album before many of you were born. And we thought we made the feel good hit of the summer! You can imagine my dismay when I saw the album art by Barny Bubles. When I saw that I thought. Oh my God, is that what we made? He called it the ‘Snake charmer and the reclining octopus’. I always hoped I was the snake charmer.”

Tearing into ‘Accidents Will Happen.” And “Armed Forces” the crowd cheered as the rockers who’ve kept time together for almost four decades drove tight arrangements of the crowd’s favorites. There were also some new interpretations of his classics, “Shabby Doll” for example was slower and more sultry, and on “Go Tell” Steve Nieve’s piano was chiming powerfully and Costello’s dissonant guitar raging. “Watching the Detectives” happened in almost a complete blackout with Costello underlit in green while pulp fiction movie posters shimmered across the large video screen behind them.

“This was a song about a woman so fixated on a TV show it drove her man out of her mind. And now, it’s the same scene a few years later, the TV is still on, but is’ only snow, and the boy is gone. There’s been a long honeymoon – and it’s like no time has passed” and he rolled into “Long Honeymoon.”

He blazed through many other cuts on Imperial Bedroom including “Kid About It”, “Indoor Fireworks”, “You Little Fool”, and ‘Pidgin English’

“I did my first album, My Aim Is True, In 24 hours, the second, Armed Forces, took three weeks. So when we booked 12 weeks to do Imperial Bedroom, we really thought we had hit the big time,” he shared. “The recording studio looked down on Oxford Circus and looking out a night, you’d see people going home and you didn’t know if they were heart broken, or in love, or on the way to the greatest night of their lives. And I tried to put some that into my songs. And this one is great, because it was sung my my girl, so this one goes out to her in Milwaukee,” and he rolled into “Almost Blue.” His girl, of course, is his wife Diana Krall, who did a cover of ‘Almost Blue’ on her album in 2004. Almost Blue was a critic highlight of Imperial Bedroom for its haunting emotionality.

After closing, Costello returned for two encore sets. He played another ten songs split up by a standing ovation as the crowd demanded even more. He started with a beautiful rendition of ‘Allison’ with just his back up vocalists at a single mike in a spotlight. Then several brilliant duos with Steve Nieve including a crashing cascading piano tour de force on “Shot With His Own Gun”. “Beyond Belief” and “Man Out of Time” brought the whole band back to the stage and the crowd to their feet before rolling into their second encore, which was the most high powered set of the night. They started with “Every Day I Write the Book,” his highest charting song, which reached #2 on the English charts, then had the crowd dancing with a stadium rocking “Pump it Up” and a finale that was a simple political statement of the night: ending his concert with a long jam of “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.”

What is amazing about Elvis Costello is that no one sings like him, his phrasing is still unique, he still inspires and seeing him play his early work and a masterpiece of an album live made for a truly unforgettable evening.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
SoulForHire
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by SoulForHire »

I believe an audience recording exists. If someone could upload it at one of the usual places, I'd be very grateful.
sulky lad
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Re: Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers - Los Angeles, CA, Greek Theatre June 4 2017  

Post by sulky lad »

I Second That Emotion ( geddit !!!)) :wink:
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