Elvis Plays Sligo Live Festival, 29 October 2011

[Otis Westinghouse]

Is this what you're referencing? It's crazy!

No, funnily enough, just amusing myself with the throwaway notion of Elvis deciding after several months of alfalfa-based salads and organic carrot juice that he'd had it with all that and it was time for a steaming cheese and leek pie with loads of butter in the pastry, etc. 'Pies' are used as a general reference for general piggery over here, like the time I was sitting on the edge of someone'sdesk at work and the (cheap and very flimsy) fake wood started to crack and she said 'Too many pies!' (which of course simply isn't the case...). But it would have been more fun if I had been referencing that ludicrous song!

[Otis Westinghouse]

Wow. That is stunning. His quiet, minimal playing here makes the song so much sadder.

Agreed, something very powerful about this rendition. Some great singing, Check out the way he delivers 'in' on 2.55 or the very last line. Superb.

Funnily enough was thinking about this song, and the brilliant Stanley Spencer 'Shipbuilders on the Clyde' painting that adorned the song's first and arguably best release in the hands of Robert Wyatt:


... because of the news of new life being breathed into the industry this week, though for more peaceful reasons than in Costello's lyric, thank God:

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-centra ... -contract/

[MOJO]

Nice post, John Foyle. Glad to hear that you exchanged words with EC after the show. A nod to you is worthy.

[sweetest punch]

A Slow Drag with Josephine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwmbxKlx1F8
Alison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw6eOosA7hs
Everyday I Write The Book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG5Z-r9g-Oo
Bullets For The New Born King: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSFHvezJQDI

[johnfoyle]

Declan Courell's photo makes the cover of the Sligo Weekender -



More photos here -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/declancourell/6299131138/

[sulky lad]

My recording is now up on dimeadozen :
Torrent #380891 Elvis Costello Knocknarea Arena, Sligo 29th October 2011 (Incomplete !!)
It's a bit of a disappointment with too much booming distortion on loud segments ( particularly WTD, Green Shirt and National Ransom No 5), a photographer clicking away next to me during the first 5 songs and John Foyle singing far too loudly in Radio Sweetheart ( only joking John, you dulcet tones are barely audible - as they should be !) Add to that, the fact that my flash recorder somehow got switched off during National Ransom and that there was precious little new material (none to be accurate, apart from the Don't Bother Me segment) and it makes for a fairly dismal listen -but I'm sure a few of you will download to boost my ratio after all these SSS shows !

[docinwestchester]

My recording is now up on dimeadozen :
Torrent #380891 Elvis Costello Knocknarea Arena, Sligo 29th October 2011 (Incomplete !!)
It's a bit of a disappointment with too much booming distortion on loud segments ( particularly WTD, Green Shirt and National Ransom No 5), a photographer clicking away next to me during the first 5 songs and John Foyle singing far too loudly in Radio Sweetheart ( only joking John, you dulcet tones are barely audible - as they should be !) Add to that, the fact that my flash recorder somehow got switched off during National Ransom and that there was precious little new material (none to be accurate, apart from the Don't Bother Me segment) and it makes for a fairly dismal listen -but I'm sure a few of you will download to boost my ratio after all these SSS shows !

Dude, your recording is excellent. Bedlam is rockin!

[bronxapostle]

i'd love to hear it. is this the only SOLO show to have surfaced so far? guess i gotta bother my good partner in crime doc to make a copy for me please. sorry all, i can NOT master these damn torrents! where's the link to hear some samples at least sulky. p.s. you shoulda went analog!!!!!!!!!

[docinwestchester]

i'd love to hear it. is this the only SOLO show to have surfaced so far? guess i gotta bother my good partner in crime doc to make a copy for me please. sorry all, i can NOT master these damn torrents! where's the link to hear some samples at least sulky. p.s. you shoulda went analog!!!!!!!!!

I'll put a few on my YouTube channel.

[docinwestchester]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsTjiEU-Te0
Bedlam ************excellent*************

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F6TMFkhf6A
Beyond Belief

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5stYFUaCfQ
New Amsterdam

[johnfoyle]

Thanks Sulky/Doc - they sound great!

[sulky lad]

Thanks Doc, your praise means loads as someone who truly understands audio recording ( Can you hear me, BA ?? )
I had a cassette recorder with me but John and I could have had front row seats which always unnerve me when I'm trying to record and I ended up on the end of a short row of seats dead centre in the second row. It meant that I could be seen by both stewards and Elvis and I didn't have any elbow room to change cassettes due to the photographer who wound me up more than necessary. I've not listened to the show on my main hi-fi so I might give it a go tonight. Last day at work in Birmingham tomorrow and then off to Amsterdam with VG and BWAP- hoorah !

[johnfoyle]

Just had a proper listen to this and its a great souvenir of the evening. A highlight is I Hope. Elvis goes off mic a few times except he doesn't really in that those parts are all the clearer via Sulky's 'mic'! Since I was sitting next to Sulky the occasional mutter can be heard from yours truly , a long with a few loud ' Now I'm dead' s as part of the call and response part of Gods Comic. .

The intro. to Radio Sweetheart reminded me of how I turned to Sulky intending to do a polite groan. Among the many topics we covered - on the train to and from Dublin, on the trek to the venue which turned out to not be as central as our map depicted, as we walked the fabulous river scenic route, as we avoided our landlady and her Holy tales etc. - was how both of us are sick to the back teeth of 'Sweetheart. I was about to mock guffaw but Sulky , thankfully, gave me a glare and I saw the mic. on his lapel and so the sound effects never happened.

I was good, by the way, to confirm that Everyday I Write The Book is before Bedlam. I knew it was done but hadn't noted its place in the sequence.

[johnfoyle]

Tidying up I find a page from Hot Press from Nov. 30 '11 . In a review of the Sligo festival Oliver P. Sweeney writes this about Elvis -


...the hero of the hour , Elvis Costello, strolled out on stage with a purposeful, 'How the devil are you then?'

He went on to deliver a jaw-droppingly brilliant set, beginning with 'Oliver's Army' and finishing with a frantic 'Pump It Up'. In between, there were digressions into material by Squeeze ( huh?- JF)and The Beatles, eight guitars used, plus a bullhorn - the common threads being unfailing good humour (' Been here once, 1968 I think!') and an extraordinary back catalogue that would stand up alongside the very best.

As with say, Richard Thompson, there's a indefinable Englishness to what Costello does, though his ability to evoke a mood, so effectively drawn in songs like 'A Drag With Josephine', is certainly a part of it. For me, though, it was his penultimate piece, the marvelously evocative 'Shipbuilding',which put the proverbial tin - or should that be steel? - hot on things. The gentleness of its delivery only served to reinforce its powerful message all the more tellingly.

[sweetest punch]

Are these clips from Sligo?
WTD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd73U0ZfKhc
Alison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRqlqrzv3gs
A Good Year For The Roses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzr_aGkpzYo

[johnfoyle]

Yes, thanks.