Elvis Costello Plays a Bit of Everything at Terrific Graceland Show

Julian Spivey Photo

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.

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