Elvis Costello And The Attractions
Forest Hills Tennis Stadium
New York, NY
August 18, 1984
Elvis Costello - guitar, vocals
The Attractions
:
Steve Nieve - keyboards
Bruce Thomas - bass
Pete Thomas - drums
Gary Barnacle - saxophone
Lineage: unknown generation CDR trade > EAC > WAV > TLH > FLAC > foobar2000
Length: 1:51:01
Sound: fair-good (mp3 samples in Comments section below)
Review in nytimes.com:
ROCK: ELVIS COSTELLO IN FOREST HILLS CONCERT
By JON PARELES
Published: August 20, 1984
Rock fans get nearly all of their music in canned form - on records, radio or television -
and grow accustomed to hearing a song in just one version. For familiarity's sake, many
bands re-create their records when they perform onstage. But Elvis Costello and his
four-piece band, the Attractions, defied their own recordings for most of their concert Saturday
at Forest Hills Stadium.
They tore apart both new and old songs - turning rockers into ballads and ballads into
funk tunes, adding crescendos and sudden hushes and shifty rhythms, rearranging straight-ahead
tunes as roller coasters.
Mr. Costello has determinedly explored rock and pop genres; his records have delved into
garage-band rock, soul, elaborate Beatles-influenced productions and folk-rock derived from
Bob Dylan. Backed by the Attractions, he has devoted full concerts to country singing and
pop crooning; more recently, he played a solo show like a folksinger, accompanied only by
his own guitar. Meanwhile, his 10th and 11th albums, ''Punch the Clock'' and the new ''Goodbye
Cruel World,'' unveil a punctilious pop style, with instrumental hooks tucked in and around
every line of lyrics.
Having warmed up all those approaches, Mr. Costello and the Attractions seem to be bursting
with the impulse to mix and match. The first part of his two-hour show had the heady unpredictability
of any good improvisatory music. The Attractions clearly knew where the songs were headed, but
every new turn was a surprise for the audience, from the twitchy bass line that underlined the words
''invisible shivers'' in ''Watching the Detectives'' to Mr. Costello's choppy singing in ''Shabby Doll.''
As jazz musicians know, experiments in rhythm and phrasing serve to torture-test a song. Mr.
Costello's reworkings sometimes obscured his pointed, associative lyrics and showed the limits
of his abilities as a melodist. There were also times that the band simply seemed to be doodling
away. But Mr. Costello's willingness to kick around his own tunes is something more bands should consider.
After 1 1/4 hours of shaking up the repertory, the group walked offstage. Mr. Costello returned alone,
with his guitar, to play a country song and a slowed-down revision ''Peace in Our Time.'' Then, joined
by the Attractions, he ran through record-perfect versions of ''The Only Flame in Town'' and ''Every
Day I Write the Book'' - his two hit singles in the United States - as if to prove that the Attractions
could, after all, be a typical pop band.
Nick Lowe and his Cowboy Outfit played a jaunty opening set. Like Mr. Costello, Mr. Lowe has a
collector's grasp of pop styles; he has lately been leaning toward rockabilly, swamp- rock and
country two-steps. Mr. Lowe also has a melodic facility that Mr. Costello lacks. But except for a
rare song like ''Cracking Up,'' Mr. Lowe sticks to jokey lyrics, and his songs stay cheerfully superficial.
01 (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
02 Lipstick Vogue
03 Watching The Detectives
04 The Only Flame In Town
05 Let Them All Talk
06 Mystery Dance
07 Shabby Doll
08 New Lace Sleeves
09 The Greatest Thing
10 Worthless Thing
11 I Hope You're Happy Now
12 Temptation
13 I Wanna Be Loved
14 King Horse
15 Young Boy Blues
16 Beyond Belief
17 Clubland
18 Inch By Inch
19 The Deportees Club
20 I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know
21 Peace In Our Time
22 The Only Flame In Town
23 Everyday I Write The Book
24 Getting Mighty Crowded
25 Love Field
26 Alison
27 Home Truth
28 Pump It Up - including Ain't That A Lot Of Love and Tears, Tears And More Tears
Opening act: Nick Lowe & His Cowboy Outfit