And the audience was very glad he was!

Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello is touring this fall, not in support of his current album with The Roots, but solo acoustic. I had seen Elvis only once, opening for Bob Dylan, and loved his short set, so I was excited to see him do a headlining show.

We traveled to the University of Connecticut’s Jorgensen Center to see him because we’d waited too long to get tickets for the Boston show. The show was well worth the long drive.

Elvis opened the show with some of his lesser-known hits, such as “Green Shirt” and “Either Side of the Same Town”. They may have been lesser known to me, but not to everyone in the audience.

At the midpoint of his set, he launched into his big hits, starting with “Every Day I Write the Book”. That got the crowd bopping to the music because those hits were what the audience came to hear. Some of the other big hits he performed were “Alison”, “Watching the Detectives”, “(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”, and “Tripwire”.

A few times during the show, he stepped back from the microphone and sang un-amplified.  That was incredible – I was close enough that I heard him perfectly, but I’ll bet everyone in the auditorium could hear him too.

Elvis Costello unamplified

This was not a ‘greatest hits’ show – there were some songs that I’m sure people expected to hear (“(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes”, for example) – which I appreciated. If all I wanted to hear was the big hits, I’d buy a greatest hits album and listen to that.

I looked at some of the posted set lists from the tour, and was pleased to see that Elvis is not playing the same set list every night. That makes me wish I had seen another show in a venue that had better sound (I think it’s not that the sound was bad but that it wasn’t right for Elvis doing acoustic).

Elvis is a wonderful performer who knows how to engage the audience while he’s playing his heart out. Now I need to see him with a full band to get a different Elvis experience!