Elvis (solo) plays Knoxville, June 20 2014

[johnfoyle]

Promo interview -

http://m.knoxville.com/news/2014/jun/12 ... e-theatre/


ELVIS COSTELLO ENJOYS THE ARCHITECTURE OF SURPRISE

By Wayne Bledsoe

Published Thursday, June 12, 2014

Elvis Costello made sure that he scheduled a show in Knoxville because he wanted to see what songs the Tennessee Theatre would inspire him to perform.

Elvis Costello’s art has not been calculated.

“The big misunderstanding I think is that’s been about intellect,” says Costello. “It’s never been about intellect. It’s always been about emotion. Nothing has been a side trip for me. It’s all been full on. ... (The idea) that anything I do is an exercise in doing anything? I wouldn’t waste my time. Time is really precious. That’s not something I’ve just come to. That’s something I’ve known since I was a child.”

In a phone call from New York, Costello is animated and personable. He has just returned from emceeing the PEN New England Award for Lyrical Excellence, which gave awards to Randy Newman and Kris Kristofferson.

“It was a beautiful afternoon. With Rosanne Cash singing ‘Loving Him Was Easier Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again.’ I played guitar for her. Allen Toussaint played ‘Louisiana 1927.’ Lyle Lovett gave a beautiful speech about Randy. So it was very unusual and unexpected to get to say ‘Thank you’ to people you admired when you started out, but that was one of those occasions.”

Costello says Newman was a particular inspiration.

“Before I did my first record I was trying to write stuff that was like his, but it was impossible. I couldn’t play the piano for one thing. I tried to make those sounds on the guitar.”

As it turned out, Costello cut his own path as he emerged from the punk/New Wave scene in the late 1970s. His early albums are now considered classics and his later work shows a wide variety of interests, including classical and jazz collaborations and a 2013 collaboration with hip-hop greats The Roots.

“It’s never been about having ambitions that I have to fulfill by a certain date, but rather these opportunities have come my way and some of them must be related to my suitability to do them and others, perhaps ... but I’m always glad for the experience.”

He’s currently working with Burt Bacharach (with whom he wrote and recorded an album in 1998) on two theater projects. In the spring he collaborated with Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Rhiannon Giddens (Carolina Chocolate Drops), Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes) and Marcus Mumford (Mumford and Sons) and producer T-Bone Burnett, to complete and record songs based on lyrics written by Bob Dylan in 1967.


“We ended up feeling like a group,” says Costello. “We played the instruments on each others’ renditions of these songs and in some cases, we ended up with four takes of these lyrics that were completely different and tremendous fun to play.”

He says the group might do some shows to support the album, but will have to wait until 2015.

At the moment, Costello is embarking on a series of solo shows. The most important thing for this tour, he says, was picking the right theaters.

“It’s just the architecture and the mood can have a particular impact on a show like this. Because what I’m doing is not coming out and playing the same songs every night. I’m taking a look around and I usually try to set myself some kind of theme in my head and base my songs on that rather than just the usual criteria of ‘that was uptempo, so now we better have a ballad’ or ‘Those three are all in A, so I better find one in G.’ I just wanted a more emotional reason to pick the songs.”

He says a show featuring songs about travel and exile or love and deceit is easy.

“Songs that ‘make the whole world sing’ or ‘your heart skip a beat’ or ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ or something — I haven’t written too many of those songs. So put a group of those together and you get a different story. ... There’s no telling what will spring to mind when I take the stage at the Tennessee Theatre. There are so many resonances in that place that you could be put in any mind. When I planned this and I knew roughly the geography of the tour I said, ‘We have to be in Knoxville. That matters. I don’t care if there’s only eight people there.’ Hopefully, there’ll be more than eight.”

During Costello’s last performance at the Tennessee, he did an impromptu version of the classic murder ballad “Knoxville Girl.”

“It comes from a great and horrible tradition of these songs that linger over the littlest details. The horrifying thing is quite often you find they’re based on real stories. ... The distance between life and death was a lot less when many of the songs we think of as folk music first appeared. People died young and there was a much greater immediacy to the sense of or mortality ... Don’t tempt me to just play murder ballads now, because I can do it.”

Elvis Costello

With: Larkin Poe

When: 8 p.m. Friday, June 20

Where: Tennessee Theatre

Tickets: $77.00, $57.00 and $47.00, plus service charges, available at the Tennessee Theatre box office, Knoxville Tickets outlets, 865-656-4444, www.knoxvilletickets and through Ticketmaster.

[mood swung]

so, yeah, I'm going. last minute decision brought on by perhaps one too many, but tix were still available last night, so.

do not expect a set list! I expect to sit in rapture for 3 solid hours.

Elvis, are you ready for Knox Angeles??????

[verbal gymnastics]

Great! I am so jealous as you get to see Elvis and Larkin Poe. I am seeing both next month but on separate occasions.

MDM - you have two jobs which are to do a setlist and enjoy yourself thoroughly. I hope you can do at least one of them

[And No Coffee Table]

From Larkin Poe's Facebook page:

[Azmuda]

http://instagram.com/p/pfLKM1CeV_/#

[And No Coffee Table]

http://twitter.com/marianew/status/4801 ... 16/photo/1

[FAVEHOUR]

A very cool show, taken to a higher level by the addition of Larkin Poe!

Not as adventurous a catalog dive as in november, but some choice covers, including two first timers in tribute to Gerry Goffin.
Setlist to best of my memory
Green Shirt
Clubland
Either Side
Veronica
Ascension Day
Sneaky Feelings
Quiet About it
Hope You're Happy
I'll Wear it Proudly
Come the Meantimes
Walking my baby
Ghost Train
Beyond Belief
WTD
Shipbuilding

With larkin poe
Pads Paws
Hoover Factory
Goin Back
Love Field
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
Long Distance Love
Withered and Died
Blame it on Cain


Slow Drag
Jimmie/Brother
Alison
Last Year
PLU. With larkin poe

I know some of the order is wrong

Dave

[bronxapostle]

Hallelujah...Dave keeps a setlist!

[FAVEHOUR]

Not really! Just from memory!

[verbal gymnastics]

Good setlist and a lengthening Larkin Poe set.

I can't wait to hear the Gerry Goffin songs.

[therealjeanlass]

Here's the probably-accurate order for the songs Dave listed earlier:

Green Shirt
Clubland
Either Side of the Same Town
Veroni-curr
I Hope You're Happy Now
I'll Wear it Proudly
Ascension Day
45
Come the Meantimes
Quiet About it
Sneaky Feelings

Walking My Baby Back Home
Ghost Train
Beyond Belief

Watching the Detectives

Shipbuilding

Encore, with Larkin Poe:
Pads, Paws and Claws
Hoover Factory
Going Back
Love Field
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
Long Distance Love
Withered and Died
Blame it on Cain

Encore, solo
Slow Drag with Josephine
Jimmie Standing in the Rain/Brother Can You Spare a Dime
Alison
Last Year of My Youth
(Larkin Poe return for...)
PLU

[mood swung]

See, verbal? I don't have to do set lists!!

What an awesome evening. I stood looking at my closet for 30 minutes trying to decide what to wear. At my age, this doesn't happen often. And an even more rare event at my age, I found something comfy AND perfect: coral shorts with little navy embroidered lobsters and a navy boatneck. I forgot I had these! Score!! A lovely dinner and a beverage or two and we - my youngest daughter and myself - are picking up at Will Call.

Larkin Poe are The Awesome. They opened with 'a gospel number' - Wade in the Water?? not sure of the title, but damn, it was stronger than dirt. I didn't know who they were, so I was expecting one person named Larkin. My bad. Bought their EP - they have an album coming out in 6 months or so, and will be UK bound on Monday. Go. Find those tickets now.

More beverages and a bathroom break (enough detail?), the lights go down again and Elvis is in the building. With like 10 guitars. And that hat, which I like to call Old Florida. Because I can. I was hoping to see the return of the gold boots (yes, it has been a while), but no such luck. There is a lot less of EC these days - looking very 1977. I was hoping he would say something about the twins, but no. He did introduce Walking My Baby by saying that he liked to play that when he was homesick.

oily slick, he played your signature tune!

He also did Slow Drag with Josephine, so I told my daughter, JOSIE, that this was obviously just for her.

She wanted a t shirt. They had Monkey to Man ones for $10 (!!! they are like antiques now!!!), so she got her wish.


therealjeanlass: Veronic-currr is right!

I Hope Your Happy Now was a really different take - very slow and sad and somewhat wistful, but it's hard to sustain wistful as it goes along. Nostalgic for me, because my first ever EC show, I had taken one last bathroom break and came dashing in as this same song dripped sarcasm all over the Ryman. Time. It just keeps moving on.

So, you other posters - are you Knoxville area? Where you in the front front mosh pit? We were on the balcony and the row in front of me look like 30-somethings, my age (50-ish) to my right and to my left two 20-somethings who abruptly left after the 3rd or 4th song. even after they commented on how good EC sounded. The guys who were like every other seat in the row in front of me, were doing the head-bang thing to every song. \m/

Fun night with a spectacular thunderstorm immediately following. Coincidence? I think not.

[FAVEHOUR]

I was in the pit, best seat I've had in a while.

And I second the opinion of Larkin Poe, they were great. And they really amped up EC's set.

Dave

[bronxapostle]

sounds great Dave. hoping those POE girls are flying to UK from NYC and might just appear for a few tunes with EC at Carnegie Tuesday/Wednesday also!

[blureu]

Wonder what prompted Long Distance Love? That's quite a rare one.

Can anyone share an audio version from the 87 tour?

[And No Coffee Table]

Wonder what prompted Long Distance Love? That's quite a rare one.

Can anyone share an audio version from the 87 tour?

May 2, 1987, Ithaca, NY:
http://www.mediafire.com/listen/e37f7a1 ... e_Love.mp3

[Boy With A Problem]

Great to see your review Moody!

[mood swung]

thank you! It was a lovely lovely evening.

[migdd]

Thanks for the review, moody! I missed you in Knoxville a few years ago when you didn't make it to the Tennessee Theater show of the Momofuku mini-tour. Glad this one was wonderful for you and Josephine!

[mood swung]

thank you. Next time we must all get together!

[johnfoyle]

http://musiccitymike.net/2014/06/27/on- ... e-20-2014/

[charliestumpy]

It is rumoured that the FLAC/320kps MP3 of e.g. 'Will you love me tomorrow' is often on (reportedly) Soulseek etc.

And well done USA Soccerballs in their fantastically gripping-entertaining match last night vs Belgium.

[Top balcony]

And well done USA Soccerballs in their fantastically gripping-entertaining match last night vs Belgium.

Yeah completely - Tim Howard : what a performance - and the rest too, wonderful.

Colin Top Balcony