Elvis Costello
Conte Forum
Boston College
Boston, MA
March 31, 1989
(1st Generation)

Transfer: 1st Generation Tapes > Nakamichi DR-01 (azimuth adjusted) > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity > iZotope RX 8 / ozone 9 (mastered) > Peak Pro 6 (post production) > xACT 2.39 > FLAC

01 Accidents Will Happen
02 Temptation
03 Deep Dark Truthful Mirror
04 The Big Light
05 God�s Comic > Last Train To Clarksdale
06 Green Shirt
07 Veronica
08 Almost Blue *
09 New Amsterdam > You�ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
10 Pads, Paws And Claws
11 Uncomplicated > Not Fade Away
12 Radio Sweetheart > Jackie Wilson Said

ENCORE w/beatbox
13 Pump It Up

ENCORE w/Nick Lowe
14 (What�s So Funny �Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding? **

ENCORE (The Heart Of Sin)
15 "The Heart Of Sin"
16 Less Than Zero
17 Alison
18 (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
19 Watching The Detectives >
20 Clubland > On Broadway

ENCORE
21 I Want You
22 Everyday I Write The Book

ENCORE
23 Last Boat Leaving

WFNX - BOSTON 1989-03-31
24 Interview
25 Pads, Paws And Claws
26 My Baby�s Gone

* Piano
** w/Nick Lowe

Elvis Costello - Vocals, Guitars, Piano

Known Faults:
-None

After 32 years the opening night of the "Spike" tour finally surfaces.

Thanks to the exhaustive and critical work of dime member "mjcrossuk" the old dime Yahoo mailing list archives is super easy to search now and no audio or video populates for this date.

It appears the date has never circulated in any form, the Elviscostello.info/wiki lists recordings for this date as unknown.

This source comes from my old taping/trading partner KS and was in a large batch of tapes he gave me last year that I finally found some time to dig into and research.

On the opening night of his first US tour in 3 years Elvis sounds energized and happy to be back on stage, the third encore features an 8-foot satin heart with pockets containing rolled-up banners listing the "thirteen-and-a-half deadly sins. After being chosen out of the audience by a man dressed in a wolfman costume, audience members were blindfolded, drew banners from the heart and were asked to name a "matching" Costello song. Track 15 "The Heart Of Sin" is a long introduction of this segment

Quality is excellent, close, clean and full bodied. The most intrusive audience noise has been seamlessly removed. Samples provided.

This is the third show from 1989 with no previous audio circulating that we've been able to put into circulation, the first two from the August Rude 5 leg sourced from the "Two Of Us" masters and now this April solo show from the KS archives. For this first leg there is still one show not circulated, the April 5th Albany, NY performance, here's to hoping it was captured and yet to surface..."Two Of Us" perhaps, time will tell.

We've also included a short radio segment from Boston radio station WFNX-FM featuring an interview and two solo in studio performances recorded and aired on the day of the show. This also appears uncirculated and possibly a previously unknown performance. The radio portion was not marked and I first assumed it was the March 7th radio performance but Elvis mentions the opening night's show that night and WFNX is name checked. I've not seen this short segment previously listed.

Thanks to my old partner KS for having the foresight to drop off his archives with me rather than taking the easier route of trashing them.

Thanks to goody for giving this one his certified pitch approved stamp.

I cannot say enough about the performance and quality of this show, highly recommended.

mjk5510




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