“Someone said this is the 32nd time I’ve been on this stage,” Elvis Costello said as he took to the Royal Albert Hall once more. “A couple of those times I was even welcome.” He certainly was on this occasion: the 71-year-old was back in people-pleasing mode – not always a given – and went back to the start with Radio Soul! The Early Songs of Elvis Costello. It’s the period from 1976 to 1986 when the man born Declan McManus established himself as one of the country’s great writers: the image of a bookish anti-rocker angrily, cleverly picking at the scabs of the personal and the political with punkish energy and artful melody.
Yet it’s hard to imagine any of the previous 31 appearances were as wildly inconsistent as this one. He bounded onstage looking none-more-Elvis – blue jacket and waistcoat, blue tinted glasses with gold winklepickers and a fedora that stayed on for all of 30 seconds – and threw himself into an opening salvo: the new wave of “This Year’s Girl” and the rockabilly thrill of “Mystery Dance”.
But even back with his long-standing band The Imposters – featuring two members of his original backing band The Attractions, drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve – from my vantage point at least, the sound mix was awful: muddy, undefined, with special guest Charlie Sexton’s guitar largely inaudible. Thomas’s powerhouse playing was central to the sound, and an early take on drum-heavy “Watching the Detectives” adapted well, its noir ska sounding fantastically dark and eerie. But it was an unfortunate issue throughout. Costello’s voice, which had an erratic night, was at times buried far too deep.
