by Julian Spivey
Elvis Costello and the Imposters kicked off the Hello Again tour at the Soundstage at Graceland in Memphis, Tenn. on Wednesday, Oct. 13 with a fantastic show that featured many of Costello’s classics, some deep cuts, stuff from his most recent album Hey Clockface (2020) and some new stuff that hasn’t yet been released.
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The show began with “Big Tears,” which was a bonus track on the 1993 re-release of 1978’s This Year’s Model. What followed were mostly tracks from Costello’s career that I’m not remarkably familiar with or haven’t hears thus far at all. I have to say as much as I admire Costello I’m admittedly more of the “greatest hits” fan than a deep-diver, which I do hope to fix one day because I’m sure I’m missing a ton of great songs.

The first song that really got me into the show on Wednesday night was “No Flag,” which I thought was the best track on his 2020 release Hey Clockface, it’s just an all-around great rocker the like you don’t hear too much from Costello in his later career. The first of what I would consider his “greatest hits” was “Everyday I Write the Book,” off his 1983 album Punch the Clock. The arrangement of the song in concert was different from the recorded version, but I really dug it.

One of the wonderful things about seeing Costello right now is two of The Imposters on stage with him are in fact original members of his first and iconic backing group The Attractions: Pete Thomas on drums and Steve Nieve on keys. The only thing really differentiating The Imposters from The Attractions is Davey Faragher on bass. Charlie Sexton has joined The Imposters on guitar for at least the first part of the Hello Again tour. The Imposters were utterly amazing all evening long.

One of the highlights of the show was a song that I don’t believe was planned – someone from the audience shouted out “Stranger in the House,” which seemed to catch Costello by surprise, but he launched right into the song, which truly proves Costello can write a country song with the best of them when he wants.

It’s always hard to really make out lyrics to new songs you’re hearing for the first time at a live show so I can’t say a whole lot about the three songs that Costello debuted on the Soundstage at Graceland, but from the music alone I think they’re all going to be promising and I look forward to hearing recorded versions.

The second half of Costello’s performance was certainly my favorite of the concert as this is when most of his “greatest hits” or classics came in the set. From “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” off This Year’s Model, through the end of the show it was a lot of old school Costello jams like “Watching the Detectives,” “High Fidelity” and then the absolute perfect one-two punch of “Radio, Radio” and “Alison” back-to-back, which truly made for one of the all-time great 10 or so minutes of any concert I’ve ever attended as those are my two favorite Costello tracks. Judging on the reaction from the Soundstage at Graceland audience many felt this way about the second half of the set.

Costello ended his set with “Farewell, OK,” a song I’m not familiar with that doesn’t seem to be on an album yet, and “Newspaper Pane” from Hey Clockface. It was an interesting way to end the main set coming off “Radio, Radio” and “Alison” back-to-back, but we all knew he’d be returning to the stage for an encore.

The encore was a thrilling three-song performance of “This Year’s Girl,” “Pump It Up” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” that had the entire ground, which had sat for most of the evening, on their feet and rocking along. I genuinely enjoyed belting ‘Peace, Love and Understanding’ at the top of my lungs with a crowd full of people, even if it undoubtedly would’ve been better without having to do so with a protective mask on my face.

I’ve always found Costello to just be an absolute cool person and I’m happy to have had the opportunity to have seen him perform twice in concert now. Both times have been fun and memorable shows.

by E.T. 
​Greetings Earthlings,
I write to you today on behalf of extraterrestrials in all galaxies and universes both near and far to share our gratitude for your Demi Lovato, pop singer extraordinaire and all-around good Homo sapien.

We read in your magazine of tumbling rocks about Lovato’s feeling that us extraterrestrials are offended by the term “alien.”

While some of us simply do not care, most of us, in fact, do view the term “alien” to be derogatory and a means to scare earthlings of our existence – of which is simply not necessary. Being greater and smarter beings than most earthlings trust me when I say we could have conquered and enslaved you centuries ago if we pleased, but only Homo sapiens have the capacity for that type of hatred and need for control.

I’m sure you have read in your books and publications and seen on your movie and television screens the cliché extraterrestrial phrase, “we come in peace.” We would indeed come in peace if we ever felt the need to come at all, which we do not. You have much unnecessary strife on your planet Earth and it’s a dying planet for many reasons, primarily your lack of belief in science.

It has come to our attention that many have laughed at Lovato for their kind words about this horrid slur some refer to us as, but I assure you Lovato is among the kindest of your kind.

We look forward to Lovato’s upcoming Peacock docuseries “Unidentified with Demi Lovato,” in which they explore what life there may be beyond Earth. While we do anticipate many laughs and inaccuracies with this series, we know their heart is in the right place.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
E.T. 

“Austin City Limits,” the wonderful PBS music program out of Austin, Texas, premiered its 47th season on Saturday, Oct. 2 with country music singer-songwriters Miranda Lambert, Jack Ingram and Jon Randall performing selections from their album The Marfa Tapes, one of the best releases of 2021 thus far.
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The episode, which was taped in late April, was the first performance on the show since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020 and you could tell Lambert, Ingram and Randall were all thrilled to be performing music in front of a live (and masked), audience once again.

Lambert said on the program that the trio have been friends for more than 20 years (which means going back to her teenage years) and began getting together to write songs about six years ago. Their first foray into writing together led to “Tin Man” off Lambert’s critically-acclaimed 2016 album The Weight of These Wings, which would go on to win Song of the Year at the 2018 ACM Awards. A version recorded specifically for The Marfa Tapes appears on the trio’s album, as does the song “Tequila Does,” which they all wrote together that appeared on Lambert’s 2019 album Wildcard.

Both songs were performed on “Austin City Limits,” with an even different performance of “Tin Man” with Randall taking lead on the first verse.

The trio got to perform almost the entirety of The Marfa Tapes on ‘ACL,’ with the only two tracks from the 15-track album they didn’t get around to (or at least didn’t make the cut on the episode) being “Breaking a Heart” and “Homegrown Tomatoes,” which is likely the most fun song on the album but would’ve required some censoring of the “F-word” on the chorus by PBS.

The almost hour-long performance kicked off with “Two-Step Down to Texas,” a highly appropriate song to get the first performance back on “Austin City Limits” in more than a year started with. From that point Lambert, Ingram and Randall took turns on lead songs, as they do on their exquisite album, in what felt like an old-fashioned Saturday night guitar pull.

Lambert blew the audience away with leads on “In His Arms,” “Waxahachie” and “Ghost,” which is likely the best song on the entire album. The trio’s excellent three-part harmonies coming off nicely on the chorus of “In His Arms.”

Ingram took lead on the emotional “Anchor,” “I Don’t Like It” and “The Wind’s Just Gonna Blow.”

Randall’s finest performance on the show and on the album was “Amazing Grace (West Texas),” which could easily wind up on my year-end top 10 list (in addition to Lambert’s “Ghost”).

Other tracks that really energized the audience were “Am I Right or Amarillo” and “Geraldine.”

These three songwriters really mesh well together both when it comes to writing these terrific songs and performing live and I’d love to see another collaboration down the line, of course it may take some time to write this many great songs together again.

The rest of the 47th season of “Austin City Limits” will continue on your local PBS station on Saturday nights and feature such performers as Jade Bird and Dayglow (Oct. 9), Jon Batiste (Oct. 16), Sarah Jarosz and Billy Strings (Oct. 23), Brandy Clark and Charley Crockett (Oct. 30), Leon Bridges and Khruangbin (Nov. 6), Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Jackson Browne (Nov. 13) and Brittany Howard (Nov. 20).