Last week Elvis Costello played two-sold out shows at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, running through the entirety of My Aim Is True. His band for the nights was Clover, who backed him for the recording of the album in 1977 (the members went on to play with Huey Lewis, Lucinda Williams, Doobie Bros). After My Aim was over, they continued for an additional fifty minutes. Via San Francisco Chronicle:
After charging through the “My Aim Is True” tunes, Costello brought out an acoustic guitar and, explaining he decided to do only songs he wrote in 1977, played a half dozen that few in the crowd had ever heard. He admitted to salvaging spare parts from some of these unpublished early efforts, like “Imagination” or “Blue Minute,” for later songs. Each of the tunes would have fit comfortably on the album. “I Don’t Want to Go Home” had the bluff and bite. “Cheap Reward” snarled properly.With the band back behind him, McFee on pedal steel, Costello brought out the secret country and western flavor of the sessions. “My manager used to say, ‘Journalist coming on the tour bus – hide the George Jones tapes,’ ” said Costello, who eventually recorded his song “Stranger in My House” with Jones.
The whole thing was a benefit for the Richard de Lone Special Housing Project. We saw some footage where he says something like, “The My Aim Is True record is 35 minutes long … everybody knew a good value for money in those days. And that was two sides of a record … I don’t record music no more, I just do this.” And he does it well. Herewith, Costello and Clover reunited on side-one-track-one “Welcome To The Working Week”:
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… and then on Saturday night at The Great American, SF legend “NECKMEAT” (a/k/a Jim Angelus) got married onstage, followed by a live show that featured Robert Downey Jr., a reunion of KILLER indie rockers M.Headphone, and an AMAZING performance by ELI BRADEN of PISTOL OPERA, the greatest unknown rock band on the planet … YES I WAS THERE (and I snuck backstage and drank ELVIS COSTELLO’S LEFTOVER BEER SUPPLY!)
AND ELVIS RULES!
I would be way pumped for a don’t look back style revisit of “This Year’s Model.”
A wonderful reminder of how great Elvis was once upon a time, and how much the last couple of decades worth of his material has sucked.
Man…wish I was there. Elvis still puts on a fantastic show and really only need to see a couple of the latest DVD releases he’s put out, Club Date from the Memphis gigs post-Delivery Man as well as the DVD from the tour with Allan Toussaint.
DeanWermer obviously hasn’t been paying attention.
I would have loved to see this show. I remember how jazzed I was when My Aim Is True came out; really different from the other stuff I was listening to. Same with This Year’s Model and Armed Forces. After that, he got a bit too tame and poetic for me, and I lost interest.
Go buy “The Delivery Man”…it’s GREAT!
Has there even been a more economical song in the history of rock n roll? 1:54 – 3 choruses, 2 verses and a bridge. Fucking crazy.
Hey, I took that video and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy! They had signs all over the venue about cameras and video equipment being confiscated if found. I decided to risk it because I knew people wanted to see this show! Tickets were $100 and it was sold out, so I knew there were fans that couldn’t make it. Anyway, thanks for posting the video. Check out my blog for more great music: http://nixmusicblog.blogspot.com
In my book, the greatest singer/songwriter of all time. And no one’s particularly close for second.
Sorry, but I can’t give any credence to a comment from any person whose sig is from a character in “Animal House”. Elvis is one of the few artists from my youth whose new CD’s I will pickup without a second thought when it comes out.
He flipped me off when I saw him during the Armed Forces tour, I was near the front of the stage and was taking his picture.