Elvis & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton at Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater, FL, January 11, 2024

[Man out of Time]

The 7-0-7 Tour with The Imposters and Charlie Sexton continues at the Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater, FL on Thursday January 11, 2024.

This will be Elvis' fifth appearance at the venue and the third with The Imposters. The venue opened in 1983 and holds 2,180 with "continental seating"".

Ticket prices range from $63.25 to $171.00. Around 70% of the seats are already sold. Tickets remain for sale here.

Who's going?


MOOT

[Man out of Time]

Preview by Jon Bradley published on 3 January 2024 in Creative Loafing Tampa.

"Elvis Costello returns to St. Pete before this month's 30A Songwriters Festival

Photo by Sandra Dohnert

2024-01-03 CL Tampa photo 01.jpg (80.46 KiB) Viewed 4167 times

Five years ago, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Elvis Costello tore down Mahaffey Theater with his different-every-night “Just Trust” tour, loaded with a healthy mix of mega deep cuts, greatest hits, and a smattering of unreleased material.

Since that night, the 69-year-old has released both a solo album (Hey Clockface) and a new Imposters record (The Boy Named If), along with a reissue of material he did with the Burt Bacharach, which was initially planned out shortly before his death last February.

Charlie Sexton—unarguably one of the best guitarists to ever back Bob Dylan—joins Elvis and The Imposters onstage as the band makes its way to north Florida's 30A Songwriters Festival.

Tickets to see Elvis Costello and the Imposters with Charlie Sexton play Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater on Thursday, Jan. 11 are still available and start at $63.25."

MOOT

[johnfoyle]

Anyone ?

[notangry]

My 31st show, which I know is paltry compared to some of you.

[johnfoyle]

Enjoy !

[And No Coffee Table]

https://elviscostello.info//wiki/index. ... Clearwater

01. A Town Called Riddle
02. Waiting For The End Of The World
03. Green Shirt
04. Hetty O'Hara Confidential
05. Radio, Radio
06. My Baby Just Squeals (You Heal)
07. I Don't Want Your Lyndon Johnson
08. Like Licorice On Your Tongue
09. I Hope You're Happy Now
10. Mystery Dance
11. Watching The Detectives
12. Everyday I Write The Book
13. A Face In The Crowd
14. Blood & Hot Sauce
15. Everybody's Crying Mercy
16. Red Cotton
17. Dio Come Ti Amo / Almost Blue
18. Clubland
19. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
20. Magnificent Hurt
21. Pump It Up
22. Alison
23. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?

[And No Coffee Table]

[sulky lad]

Great to see Elvis in a kilt - but with a PVC top
Even as a Sassenach, I'm mortified!
But brilliant photos nonetheless despite the sartorial faux pas and amazing to see him with a banjo - I'm tempted now to see how much one is !

[sweetest punch]

https://www.tampabay.com/life-culture/m ... l-setlist/

Elvis Costello performs ‘classics’ and lesser-known songs in Clearwater
Closing in on 50 years of performing, Costello entertained a nearly sold-out crowd at Ruth Eckerd Hall on Thursday night.

CLEARWATER — For a subset of Gen-Xers and even some boomers, sound salvation never did come out of FM radio.

As the DJs played “Bad Company” and “Take it Easy” on repeat, they found the soundtrack of their teens and early 20s by word of mouth and by picking through the used LPs at their favorite record store. They had a cool older sibling or were lucky to discover a decent college station on the AM dial.

Eventually, they found their way to Elvis Costello and some iteration of his accompanying band and wondered why more people hadn’t heard of “Alison,” “Pump It Up” or even, yes, “Radio, Radio,” his protest of commercialized airplay.

Just more than 2,000 fellow travelers headed over to Ruth Eckerd Hall on Thursday for an evening with the bard of alternative music, or if you prefer, New Wave. Elvis Costello and the Imposters, a pair of longtime bandmates and two more recent recruits, gave the audience a mix of the classics and some tunes they’d doubtlessly never heard before.

The nearly sold-out crowd applauded the deep cuts and more obscure covers and sang along to the hits. Never mind that Costello has never had a song reach higher than No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100 — with a song co-written by Beatle Paul McCartney, no less. He didn’t even play that song, “Veronica,” on Thursday night.

The West London native, born Declan Patrick MacManus, appeared onstage in a kilt, the second night of a tour through seven Southern states, with four stops in Florida. He spent the night reaching for his loose-fitting bonnet, which seemed at risk of flying off as he ripped through the power numbers.

“I’m feeling kind of in the mood tonight,” said Costello, 69, after a pause following the second song, “Waiting for the End of the World,” from his nearly 50-year-old debut album, “My Aim is True.”

Was he wearing the kilt in the traditional manner, meaning without underwear? “That’s for me to know and you to find out,” he quipped.

To the crowd’s delight, Costello returned to the early parts of his catalog early and often, following “Waiting for the End of the World” with “Green Shirt” from his third album, “Armed Forces.” By song five, he had the audience out of their seats with a rousing rendition of “Radio, Radio.”

More songs got the crowd standing, including “Watching the Detectives,” another cut from the debut album, and “Every Day I Write the Book” from 1983′s “Punch the Clock.”

Costello was accompanied by members of his longtime backing band, The Attractions, keyboardist Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas; along with bassist Davey Faragher, formerly a founding member of Cracker (hence the name change to the Imposters). They were joined by Charlie Sexton, a guitarist and music producer who played for years with Bob Dylan and had his own hit, “Beat’s So Lonely,” as a teenager in 1985.

Costello took turns on electric and acoustic guitars, banjo and piano.

A highlight came when Costello picked up the acoustic guitar for the Italian ballad “Dio, Come Ti Amo” (”God, How I Love You”), which transitioned to an even slower version of slow staple “Almost Blue,” from 1982′s “Imperial Bedroom” and was made particularly haunting by turns from Nieve on melodica.

Building to the close, the band bounced through “Clubland“ and “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea” and “Pump it Up” before slowing it down one more time to take it back to the debut album, with Sexton plucking out the tricky guitar parts on “Alison.”

They closed it out as Costello often has in recent years, with ”(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.” The crowd belted out the lyrics word for word, as if they’d heard it on the radio on the way to the show.

[sweetest punch]

https://www.cltampa.com/tampa/review-in ... 0/17059063

Review: In Clearwater, Elvis Costello’s aim to play obscurities remains true

Sometimes, Florida’s reputation of having notoriously pathetic winters isn’t the worst thing, because Thursday night, 69-year-old Elvis Costello came out to his first Tampa Bay concert in nearly half a decade rocking a plaid kilt with a matching tam hat, white knee-high socks, and a black button-down.

“As you can see, I’m in the mood tonight,” he winked after getting through a sing-along of “Waiting for the End of the World,” the penultimate track on his debut album My Aim Is True. "I am the sixth Jackson!"

Costello hasn’t been in the area since a 2019 gig at St. Pete’s Mahaffey Theater on his “Just Trust” tour, and though his setlist options remain incredibly versatile, he had a new secret weapon in tow this time around: Charlie Sexton, a longtime—and fairly recent—guitarist for Bob Dylan, has been acquainted with Costello and the Imposters since at least 2021, and considering the pairing of the ideally minimalistic stage setup and often new compositions of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee’s tracks, I have to wonder how much say Sexton has in the execution of the show.

“Green Shirt” was still played in its original key, but was slightly slowed down, while later in the set, the normally upbeat “Clubland” was played completely acoustic, minus Sexton’s very quiet black electric Gibson. A pretty good chunk of Costello’s two-hour set was filled with unreleased material too, some of which were songs inspired by his favorite “long-forgotten people” (“My Baby Just Squeals (You Heal),” “I Don’t Want Your Lyndon Johnson”).

His two piano-only numbers—with minimal help from Imposters keyboard whiz Steve Nieve—were also unreleased tracks. While propped behind a Steinway & Sons grand, Costello explained the folklore behind “A Face In The Crowd”—the title track to the production hell-trapped stage musical that Costello contributed about 20 songs to—and “Blood & Hot Sauce.” While the title song focused on a “no-good, alcoholic womanizer,” Costello described the latter tune as the perfect campaign song for someone running for dog catcher or Miss Universe (both of which he assured the crowd he’d abstain from running for anytime soon).

Super deep cuts aside, Costello did deliver to those who weren’t necessarily there to pick at one of many crevasses of his vault. He detailed the original version of “Radio Radio” as a direct salute to Bruce Springsteen’s intriguing Jersey sound—and the many aspects of Asbury Park that once confused the hell out of Costello—and though there were no soulful backing singers on site, he cracked out a slightly offbeat rendition of “Everyday I Write the Book,” still in its original key.

But following a cover of Mose Allison’s “Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy” with a heavy-hearted Costello on acoustic guitar (he was thinking about how the world is going to shit), he was handed a banjo (a big change from the standard Fender Jazzmasters used throughout the show) and began to talk about “Red Cotton.”

“I wrote this for an opera I started about Hans Christian Andersen and P.T. Barnum,” he explained, later jabbing at how the 2017 release of “The Greatest Showman” caused him to ixnay “The Secret Songs”—which he was commissioned by the Royal Danish Opera to write—altogether.

Kilts, banjos, and a scrapped opera in the same scene. Yep, just another night in the life of Elvis Costello. May we witness many more in the years ahead.

[johnfoyle]

Karrie Berglund's photos -