Watching EC perform "Black & White World" made me think...

[cwr]

... how many GREAT Costello songs that he simply never has time to revisit, not even on his many many tours where he pulls out plenty of songs from his back catalog. Even a masterful song like "New Lace Sleeves" only shows up occasionally in the setlist-- for most other songwriters, if they had a "New Lace Sleeves" in their arsenal, they'd play it every night!

Almost every single Costello album has AT LEAST one or two amazing songs that simply NEVER gets revisited. It's actually a lot more than one or two, in most cases. And that's not even counting all the b-sides! So many songs.

I wonder if he'll ever do a tour where he only plays the obscure ones. I mean, at this point, he has an audience of concertgoers who would probably flip for a "B-Sides and Deep Cuts" tour, right? As long as it were advertised that way to warn off the drunk lady yelling out for "Alison" (she'll show up anyway.)

I want to hear him play "Hoover Factory" and "Next Time Round" and "The Bridge I Burned" and "Impatience"! Especially "Impatience"! Why he has passed up so many opportunities to play that (like when he toured with the horn section and it would have sounded great) boggles my mind...

[verbal gymnastics]

He's got a lot of B sides, outtakes and filler tracks that a lot of artists would kill for

[bronxapostle]

cool, let's name some faves:

HEATHEN TOWN
BABY'S GOT A BRAND NEW HAIRDO
FLIRTING KIND
SO YOUNG
BASEMENT KISS
DADDY CAN I TURN THIS?
IN ANOTHER ROOM
TINY STEPS
WONDERING
THE GREATEST LOVE.....how's that for the first ten GREAT b's or obscures that i thought about.

[Jack of All Parades]

I have often thought that a plausable tour could be built off of one his main strengths- as we are reminded yet again in the New Yorker profile- that of being a particularly strong writer about love-as the article stated "Costello has always written abundantly and intricately about love and lust, infidelity and betrayal, and all the tawdry pleasures and difficulties that arise out of them." Could call it the 'Love and Lust" tour!

[Ypsilanti]

Love & Lust Tour, absolutely. I'd camp out all night for those tickets.

Perhaps he would play some of these...

Clowntime Is Over #2
Dr. Luther's Assistant
Two Little Hitlers
Sunday's Best
Ghost Train
Heathen Town
Turning The Town Red
Inch By Inch
Next Time 'Round
Coal Train Robberies
Rocking Horse Road
Tart
In Another Room
Harry Worth
Motel Matches

[Dr. Luther]

...HEATHEN TOWN...
...FLIRTING KIND...

Two of his best.

[Jeremy Dylan]

cool, let's name some faves:
IN ANOTHER ROOM

He played this in Sydney when I saw him last October.

I'm hoping he'll drag out some of these tunes when I see him next year:

MOODS FOR MODERNS (when did he last play this?)
WAVE A WHITE FLAG
OPPORTUNITY
SIX FINGERED MAN
NEEDLE TIME
BRILLIANT DISGUISE

[sulky lad]

Ypsilanti wrote

Clowntime Is Over #2
Dr. Luther's Assistant
Two Little Hitlers
Sunday's Best
Ghost Train
Heathen Town
Turning The Town Red
Inch By Inch
Next Time 'Round
Coal Train Robberies
Rocking Horse Road
Tart
In Another Room
Harry Worth
Motel Matches

You must be my long lost twin - amazing just about my complete list with the addition of Sweet Pear and When I Was Cruel

[Ypsilanti]

Ypsilanti wrote

Clowntime Is Over #2
Dr. Luther's Assistant
Two Little Hitlers
Sunday's Best
Ghost Train
Heathen Town
Turning The Town Red
Inch By Inch
Next Time 'Round
Coal Train Robberies
Rocking Horse Road
Tart
In Another Room
Harry Worth
Motel Matches

You must be my long lost twin - amazing just about my complete list with the addition of Sweet Pear and When I Was Cruel

Love both of those too!

[pophead2k]

A few 'obscurities' I feel lucky to have heard live from the man:

Sweet Pear (MLAR tour in Berkeley, CA; EC played the beautiful guitar solo on a nice fat hollow body Gretsch or something like it)
Secondary Modern and Strict Time (the 'Best of' tour a couple of years ago in Washington DC)
Tears Before Bedtime (RIR tour in Vienna, VA)
Still Too Soon to Know (BY and orchestral tour with SN; Memphis, TN and Cary, NC respectively)

I would love to hear a live version of Satellite with a less fussy arrangement or my all time favorite, You Tripped at Every Step, with the Sugarcanes.

[bronxapostle]

cool pophead. didn't think of it from the angle of if i had seen any of the ones i mentioned so i did catch four of my ten. and all of the ones you listed EXCEPT sweet pear...way cool! and i too would LOVE a live SATELLITE! come on folks, let's hear what YOU think deserves an unearthing by E live SOON!

[jardine]

i'd like to see a live performance of North, with the song of the same name, impatience, and young hung the moon as encores. especially since hearing you hung the moon on the new c.d. i think he could better interpret those North songs now. I LOVE north, but it always seemed as if he hadn't quite lived with some of the songs for long enough to find their "flex" and turns...

[cwr]

I was disappointed that he didn't ask Burt Bacharach to write arrangements for both "Satelite" and "The Flirting Kind" back when they were playing full orchestra shows together, since those were two songs that EC confessed to trying to imitate a little of Burt's style. Would've been fascinating to hear what Burt might have heard in them...

[jardine]

Yes and thanks, didn't know that about flirting kind!

elvis' talk about standing in a circle with the new c.d. and facing each other when they recorded reminded me most of sinatra at his peak (even the fedora) standing amidst the orchestra and recording basically live. does anyone know how North (the c.d.) was recorded? like this, or overdubbed vocals afterwards????

[Man out of Time]

I got to see EC play "Black and White World" solo in Cardiff this year, where he also treated us to a solo version of "Suit of Lights", a solo take on "Poison Moon" - one of the Honky Tonk demos and "All or Nothing at All" - an obscure cover . I also saw him dust off "King of Confidence" in Birmingham - a song that he had not played live for 23 years. At this year's Meltdown festival, perhaps more predictably, I saw him join Richard Thompson in playing "End of the Rainbow" - another song that he'd not played ive since 1986.

Elvis does like to revisit his back catalogue. In contrast to the above, across five concerts this summer I saw him play "Oliver's Army" only once. If you've got a favourite, I would encourage you to seek out Elvis back stage after a gig and tell him what it is. You never know....

My wish list would include:

Basement Kiss (or anything from "The Gwendolyn Letters"
Clowntime is over #2,
The Comedians,
Couldn't call it unexpected #4,
Just a memory,
Rocking Horse Road,
The Scarlet Tide,
Uncomplicated,

and for a "cover" version - Raglan Road. His version of that performed with the Brodsky Quartet last year was sensational.

Long may Elvis write new songs, rearrange his "hits" for bands, orchestras or solo performance, and revisit his back catalogue so that it remains a goldmine, rather than a millstone round his neck.

""Many people build a career on just one or two songs," he says, with a degree of pride and self-mockery. "I have 400 of the fuckers." (EC interviewed by Tim Adams for The Observer, London October 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oc ... -tim-adams


MOOT

[Man out of Time]

I'm hoping he'll drag out some of these tunes when I see him next year:

MOODS FOR MODERNS (when did he last play this?)

Your reliable source for all such queries is the Costello performance index, part of the Homepage wiki, here:

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... nce_Index/

According to the Perfomance index Mood for Moderns was last played live in June 1980 at Kings College Cambridge around the time I was finishing my A levels. Instrumental Snippets have surfaced more recently, including an Imposters gig in Oxford (Mississippi) in 2004, so don't give up hope.

MOOT

[verbal gymnastics]

See what I started

This one can run and run...

[docinwestchester]

Has Elvis ever done an "album show", ie, play an entire album from start to finish? Springsteen and Steely Dan, among others, did these recently, and I love the concept. Pick an album, any one, and I'd be there in a heartbeat. With the 'Canes, Imposters, The Roots, whoever...

For starters, I'd take Get Happy!! with the Imposters.

[krm]

My aim is true on a benefit gig for Richard de Lone a few years back.

[sulky lad]

An album show !!
Elvis only has 7 weeks to get Bruce's phone number if he's going to celebrate 30 tears since Get Happy and perform that live
Of course, if Bruce is still finding his existential truth up a mountain somewhere, my Epiphone is already in tune and I know Get Happy back to front - though some might say my playing sounds like that too.