Elvis Costello and the Imposters Vancouver concert review: "We're All Going on a Summer Holiday" tour kickoff at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, featuring Nick Lowe Y Los Straitjackets

All concert photos by Allan MacInnis, not to be reused without permission

Errata Alert: Oops, I somehow got "Girls Talk" confused with "Little Triggers." As commenter Charles notes, "Little Triggers" was not performed. My bad!

I once interviewed the singer of a long-lived rock band who have a few hits that they are pretty much expected to play at every show. I asked him if he ever got sick of being expected to play these songs, and he responded very much in the negative, saying that no, that they're great crowd-pleasing songs that make everyone happy, that he was grateful to be able to play. "Isn't it tough to keep them fresh, as musicians?" I asked, whereupon he went on a wee rant about Van Morrison, whom he had seen not too long ago. Morrison - I had left him out of previous versions of this story, because the singer didn't want to create bad blood, but here I'll do the opposite and leave out the singer's name - had played radically rearranged versions of his hits live, barely recognizable reconfigurations of them. Why the hell would you mess with hits, this singer had wondered aloud, seeming sincerely baffled and frustrated. People want to hear the song like they remember it, to sing along with it. Don't confuse them! Play it like people know it!

Elvis Costello and the Imposters sure did not do this last night. They didn't depart TOO far from the range of normal, mind you; I'm not sure how messed-up Van Morrison's re-arrangments had been at said show, but the only songs I did not recognize last night were songs I did not, in fact, know (like "Watch Your Step," which Sneaky Dragon podcaster David Dedrick pointed out to me later as having been a deep dive off the album Trust). But faithful replications of the hits they were most definitely NOT, from the very outset, kicking off with a strange, shimmery "Green Shirt," which I didn't even recognize til the chorus; a highly off-kilter take on "The Beat," from which the tour took its name; and a slowed-down, grooved-up, swinging reworking of "Hetty O'Hara Confidential," the night's third tune, which I enjoyed even more than the studio version, I think, and which was the point in the evening where - having had to overcome a few distractions - I really began to enjoy myself, the song that decisively delivered me from the fear that I was not gonna connect with the night (which does sometimes happen), to a happy place of trust, confidence, and frequent joy. We also were treated to a much spacier, stranger, menacingly expanded take on "Watching the Detectives;" a "Newspaper Pane" that I mistook at first for "We're All Cowards Now," and which my wife later did not believe we had heard, when I played her a snippet from Hey Clockface, later on in the car; a song that I would not, without knowing the lyrics, have mistook for "Waiting for the End of the World," which had the most purposive alteration of the night, with Costello hanging up his delivery after "Waiting" for a few seconds before completing the phrase, so that the word "waiting" left us waiting - ha!; and perhaps most entertainingly, a mashup between "Welcome to the Working Week" and Merle Haggard's "Workin' Man Blues," with Costello alternating verses, singing first his song then Haggard's, back and forth through both songs, making the very short original into a satisfying four-minute meal (a fine idea, and the song last night that probably made the best use of Charlie Sexton's twang). Costello even explained the logic of the approach during one of his between-song engagements with the audience, saying "We are not on a Golden Oldy tour, we are on a summer holiday from ourselves," elsewhere quipping about how they were altering the songs in "foolish and fantastic ways." I did not feel like we'd gotten a heads up that that was what a "summer holiday" meant to the band; seeing ads with "We're All Going on a Summer Holiday," I had figured that a summer holiday would entail exactly the opposite, a crowd-pleasing greatest hits package! 

...which means, sorry to say, that I'm pretty sure there were some folks who were lost and alienated by the evening, maybe even pissed-off ("Costello Offers Weird-Ass Revisionist Interpretations and Unfamiliar Tunes to a Polite but Confused Full House," a cranky headline might read; it would indeed be an easy and fair angle on the evening. I'll be looking around to see if anyone wrote that article, in fact - Mike Usinger, perhaps? Surely he was there?).

But (sorry) to heck with those people; if that's as far as they're prepared to go with an artist, they should stick to wax museums. I loved all of the above, loved how playful and creative Costello's reworkings were, how fresh he kept the songs, how much trust he had in his fans. I might not have dug said Van Morrison gig, I dunno - wasn't there - but I recall seeing Bob Dylan in Japan - coincidentally, also with Charlie Sexton, visible to the right of the pic above, as Dylan's guitarist - and actually being disappointed that Dylan played boringly faithful and professional renditions of his songs, contrary to his usual reputation; one highly foreshortened "Desolation Row" aside, you could have just stayed home and listened to the albums. Blech! I LIKE the idea that, say, last night's version of "Girl's Talk" - another tune that it took me awhile to recognize - was maybe the only time I would ever hear the song rendered thus, LIKE that Costello and company kept things fresh and fun for themselves. This tour would make a fantastic live album, at least for fans like me. What's the point of a live album if it's not different from the original? Last night's show (or a show documenting the best performances of the completed tour, which I gather will continue in this vein) would be a must-buy, for me. And if you were the type of person who delighted to hear the Spanish alterations of the songs on This Year's Model that Costello released as Spanish Model (sadly not on the merchtable, which was dominated, in terms of vinyl, with an album of French reworkings of Costello and Lowe songs - not sure what that was - and a big stack of Hey Clockfaces), you probably would dig it too...

"Dial M for Merch": a David M. selfie at the merch table: Allan-Erika-Danielle-David

David M. (of NO FUN) had as much fun as I did, or possibly even MORE, writing afterwards that, while acknowledging that "the 'I-want-the-hits-played-the-way-I-know-them-because-I-paid-big-bucks' people do have a point," last night was his kind of show, with "lots of variables in play. New arrangements, new songs, improvised bits, audio problems, stagecraft issues, etc. Great musicians overcome these things and if you're lucky you get a show unlike any other. That's what I like in a concert. Perfect performances that sound just like the hit recordings are nice too, but I like not knowing what's going to happen before it happens. Once-in-a-lifetime shows are what I'm always hoping for."

Amen! And Costello was also a fine host for the proceedings. While I sadly can't do justice to the very funny anecdote that he told, that yoked listening to Neil Young and David Bowie on Radio Luxembourg after the BBC went to sleep to a story about buying his first Bruce Springsteen album, it was the best bit of between-song business of the night, which also saw him teasing out similarities between "Born to Run" and "Radio Radio," which I certainly hadn't noticed before; that song ("Radio Radio;" no Bruce was covered) got me dancin' in my seat, even if it wasn't exactly like you hear on This Year's Model. Surely moments like that hooked in even the more conservative listeners?

Oh, and we got treated to two new songs - an unreleased ragtime gospel item called "Blood and Hot Sauce" that Costello sang on piano, as the first song of the encore, which has been around since at least 2016, which Costello's intro seemed to suggest was election-trail themed (can't do it justice, but he seemed to be referring to a certain recent US President, whose name I don't even want to write, anymore); and a song called "Clown Around Town," or something like that ("Do you want to hear a new song," he asked us, and got a kind of muttered, lowercase "yaah" in response, to which he responded that we hadn't been enthusiastic enough, and asked us again, to predictably bigger cheers). I can't describe it, really, but it was a good'un, and probably means I'll buy his next album, too. My Youtube research does seem to suggest we were the first full audience EVER to hear that song. How can you not love a treat like that? 

There WERE some things I did not love about last night, mind you, most of which I don't place on Costello, from the overall sound in the Queen Elizabeth Theatre - only really clear up front, shockingly cavernous and concrete-boxy from midway back, with Steve Nieve's keys sometimes seeming very sharp and everyone's vocals sounding a bit too echoey - to the butt-pinching seats (my wife and I were in thigh agony, no one having tipped us to the alternating wide-and-skinny-row aisle seat arrangements, so we got stuck, so to speak, in narrowsville; we ended up having to move back to the accessibility area, facilitated by the Queen E. staff, because, not ourselves narrow, we were in agony. It put a big note-to-self on the night to avoid the venue for any future shows). There's no explaining the sound issues, which I was not the only one who noticed (and don't mesh with what other friends are saying on Facebook about the sound quality of the space on past shows; Bryan Ferry apparently had sounded superb); it doesn't seem to have been the band's fault, since they'd been rehearsing there for a couple of days, we were told. But some of it DOES reflect on the band: considering it is the song that the tour title came from, I thought the electric bass was way too loud on "The Beat," which sounded so wrong that I was terrified that I wasn't going to enjoy the night at all, before being completely seduced and delighted by that aforesaid swingin' "Hetty O' Hara Confidential." Alas, I also thought that three songs near the end of the main set were very weirdly wrong-sounding, especially a godawful "Town Cryer" - feckin' tune yer guitar, mate! - which was appropriate indeed for Costello to include in a Canadian concert, given that the Tragically Hip took their name from it, but which sounded so screwed up I used it as an excuse for a bathroom break; and a main-set-closing version of Costello's Burt Bacharach collaboration "Toledo," which, despite a moving intro from Costello about getting the news that Bacharach had died, was tied with "Town Cryer" for least listenable song of the night, not at all aided, for me, by the fact that I hardly know the original (I still haven't dug into his Bacharach collabs). It does suggest people with only a nodding familiarity with the man's songbook would have a harder time of things. My wife - who doesn't know Costello's catalogue nearly as well as I do - thought Costello's voice was completely off for that one, but I couldn't make sense of any of it either, neither the vocals or what the band was doing musically. "He does do jazzy stuff with his vocals," I said with a shrug, when she remarked upon it. "Maybe he means for it to sound that way?" But I didn't care for it either, nor the song that came between the two, a cover of Cat Stevens' "The First Cut is the Deepest," which Costello also altered a bit for his presentation (which weirdly seemed less welcome, though I can't justify my thinking here: "Mess with your OWN hits, but be faithful to the covers"? Is that even rational?). That song had a really great passage at the end, though, where the band fell away - maybe there was some gentle mallet work from Pete Thomas? - and Costello brooded movingly over the chorus, so it was better than either the song before or after it.

I was also utterly shocked to realize at the end of the night that Costello and company had COMPLETELY DITCHED The Boy Named If, which dominated their last tour; I've fallen in love with that album, and figured it would be amply represented, but unless I'm mis-remembering, there was not a trace of it in the setlist (!!!). Nor was there an "Alison" (which I figured was an obligatory signature tune) or a "Pump It Up," neither of which, I'm guessing, feel like a "holiday" for the band to play at this point. Which is fine with me - I'd rather hear "Waiting for the End of the World" and "Welcome to the Working Week" off the first album, anyhow, than "Alison," and I NEVER want to hear a song that's become a slog (like that bored, hurried, get-this-over-with Lou Reed encore I often mention, also from Japan, where he obligingly trudged out "Walk on the Wild Side," "Perfect Day," and "Sweet Jane," while obviously wishing he was anywhere else); but my wife, in fact, was not the only person I spoke to who wasn't all that thrilled with not recognizing half the songs, either because they were deep dives (another one being "When I Was Cruel No. 2," with expanded "Dancing Queen" quote) or had been radically reworked. If M and I are on one end of the spectrum, as neophiles, there were definitely people I spoke to afterwards who were on the other ("though I DID like that 'Watching the Detectives,'" one friend, who shall go nameless, observed, who otherwise had thought it was a so-so night. My wife liked that one, too!).  

Does this make you all want to go see Elvis Costello on this tour? I hope so, myself, but fair warning, if not. I loved it, and am so happy to have had cause to dig into Costello's recent albums, because I'd been missing out - A Boy Named If and Hey Clockface are now both up there with my very faves of his. But if you don't know your stuff - if you only have one Elvis Costello album, and it's a greatest hits compilation, and if you're like the singer who could not STAND that Van Morrison show I mentioned, you might not want to invest in this tour. Or start doing your homework now, if you already have your tickets! 

...though I think even the most casual fan would have gotten off on seeing Nick Lowe join Costello onstage at the end of the night. Lowe's opening set had been a bit more conventional than his headlining friend's, including some of his biggest, most obvious hits ("Cruel to Be Kind," "Half a Man and Half a Boy," "I Knew the Bride"), a couple of charming Los Straitjackets instrumentals, and a really fun, faithful reading of my favourite recent tune by him, "Tokyo Bay" (that guy who whooped loudly when he announced it was me, btw; sorry if it startled you!). He also had to be polite and charming through the sad spectacle of people navigating their way through the QE's narrow aisles, joking more than once that his role was to get everyone seated (though he was a gentleman, not embittered, about it) Nick, you should know that more than one person was more excited about seeing you than Elvis, and delighted at your own deep dive, "I Live on a Battlefield;" I also really dug his newish song, I think, "Lately I've Let Things Slide." But - tho' the older, kinda boomerific audience had stayed seated for most of the night, Lowe coming out at the very end, for the last two songs of Costello's encore, got most of the floor on its feet (finally), and gave me an excuse to come down the aisle so I could actually DANCE to the big show closer, which, obviously, was an utterly faithful, powerhouse version of "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding?" - probably the least re-worked song of the night and a real treat to bounce around to. Even that was preceded, however, by a very reworked duet of "Indoor Fireworks," which is apparently (M. tells me) a song Lowe, Costello, and indeed, M. himself all have versions of, but which I don't know so well. "This version had stretched-out lyrics," M. reports, "so each line was twice the regular length. Fantastic... Nick Lowe clearly wasn't expecting an altered version, but he caught on quick."   

My compliments, Mr. Costello - M. is a bit on the hard-to-please side, and I can be a cranky SOB as well, especially when my ass is sore from shitty seating and I feel like I'm in a concrete echo chamber. But M and I had the time of our lives last night, and I'm gonna be rushing out to buy Trust and Spanish Model now (no, no songs were sung in Spanish, though Lowe did close "Tokyo Bay" with a domo arigatoo, and someone - Lowe? Costello? - said a few things in French, at some point, though I forget who or what.) I've wanted to see Elvis Costello since I saw him at that Hal Willner Neil Young thing, and while last night's experience was satisfying - hell, WONDERFUL - enough that I feel like I have now scratched that itch, if he played again next month, I'd be there. (Maybe not if it were at the QE, tho').

Thanks, Elvis Costello & the Imposters! Thanks, Nick Lowe! Thanks, David M.! Whatta great night!

PS: complete setlist here - I must have been in the bathroom for "Love in Mind."