April 26, 1978 review: Elvis Costello at Shea's Buffalo

 

A totally pumped-up evening – Nick Lowe at his power-pop peak and Elvis Costello before he got mellow. 

April 26, 1978 review

Costello’s Cruel Trick Leaves ‘Em Hanging 

          It had to be another one of Elvis Costello’s cruel and deliberate effects. There they were, close to 2,000 of them in Shea’s Buffalo Tuesday night, cheering and clapping away for a second encore, drowning out the sound system serenade of music to find exits by.

          Hadn’t the sawed-off sensation told them that’s how to get what they want? Didn’t he say make some noise? Well, here was noise. The backdrop curtains rose. The roadies clicked off the amps and disconnected the mikes. Still there was cheering.

          Some of the disgruntled fans blamed the promoter as they finally yielded to the inevitable and put on their coats. More likely, it was Costello’s doing. The British singer and songwriter isn’t satisfied with sympathetic vibrations. He wants to provoke response.

          “Up, up,” he urged folks already rising to their feet for “Miracle Man” and “You Belong to Me” at the uptempo end of his set. Jump around and maybe the balcony will fall and crush someone, he proposed before an ecstatic encore of his highest-powered rocker, “Mystery Dance.”

          Costello didn’t look all that harsh and dictatorial at first. Jumping around stage in his suit and tie and guitar, he seemed like a Woody Allen figure – cute, small and ingenuously appealing.

          That image hardened during his hour-long set, helped along by the harsh green and red floodlights at his feet and tunes like “Radio Radio,” a catchy attack on bland programming in which he declares: “I want to bite the hand that feeds me …”

          Those looking to the future of the new trend in rock might see a limiting factor in Costello’s anger. It repels some of those who might want to embrace him. An equally significant limitation was Costello’s musical format.

          Evolution kept some of the old favorites interesting. The progress of “Less Than Zero” turned it into tongue-in-cheek reggae pornography. “Red Shoes” was a sheer upbeat joy. But whenever Costello and his three-man band, the Attractions, tried to stretch tunes like “Watching the Detectives,” they were unable to work up a worthy solo.

          The second group on the triple bill, New York City’s Mink de Ville, was a grand vision imperfectly realized. Guitarist and singer Willie DeVille betrayed his slick Spanish lover pose – three-piece suit, tie and cuff links, plus a tall pompadour hairdo – by indulging his rough rock ‘n roll impulses.

          DeVille’s equally grand ‘60s pop musical stylings, which suggested the Drifters crossed with Phil Spector, were sabotaged by DeVille’s hoarse shout (he could use a couple harmony singers) and an inadequate sound check. Of the three groups, Mink DeVille was the only one to suffer feedback, tuning problems and pauses between numbers.

          DeVille accepted the encore that was denied the opening act, Nick Lowe, though Lowe got greater applause.

          Lowe, the first artist on England’s maverick Stiff Records and producer of Elvis Costello, turned in a set that was every bit as exciting as Costello’s. And without any tricks.

          Included in his backup trio was guitarist and singer Dave Edmunds, a British hitmaker in his own right. They ripped through a high-energy set of letter-perfect pop tunes, slipping quickly from one to the next. The intensity didn’t falter anywhere between the opening “And So It Goes” to the final “Heart of the City.” The crowd booed the house lights when they rose.

          Lowe, a clean, likeable fellow in black and red, also showed mastery of the old rock talent for bouncing knock-kneed on one’s toes as he cranked the enthusiasm higher and higher. Lowe set the standard for the evening, a standard that even Costello was obliged to live up to.

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IN THE PHOTO: Elvis Costello in concert in the late 1970s.

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FOOTNOTE: My astrological twin Jack Dumpert tells how he encountered Elvis Costello the next morning on the sidewalk outside what was then the Holiday Inn on Delaware Avenue, complimented him on the show and remarked that he had taken his daughter with him for her first rock concert. To which Costello replied: “The first time is always the best.”

          According to setlist.fm, Elvis Costello played 174 shows that year, 69 of them in the U.S. This was the sixth since he started out less than a week earlier in the State Theatre in Minneapolis. There’s no listing of songs from the Buffalo date. Here’s what he did two nights later at the Landmark Theatre in Syracuse:

 

          (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes

This Year’s Girl

No Action

Waiting for the End of the World

          Lip Service

          (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea

          Stranger in the House

          The Beat

          Alison

          Lipstick Vogue

          Watching the Detectives

          You Belong to Me

          Mystery Dance

          Pump It Up

          Miracle Man

          I’m Not Angry

          Mink de Ville was out promoting its second album, “Return to Magenta,” which was greeted with poor reviews. The original band would break up shortly after this. Willie DeVille began touring and recording under his own name in 1987 and got a place in the French Quarter of New Orleans a year later, describing it as his spiritual home. He returned to New York City in 2003 and died there in 2009. Underrated while he was with us, he’s much better appreciated now. Bob Dylan thinks he should be in the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame.

          Sadly, there are no lists for Mink de Ville on setlist.fm and there aren’t any for Nick Lowe either. Since Lowe had just recorded his two biggest hits – “Cruel to Be Kind” and “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass” – it’s likely that he played them that night. Ads for the show call the group "Nick Lowe with Rockpile." When they returned to play Shea's in October 1978 as openers for Van Morrison, they were "Dave Edmunds and Rockpile with Nick Lowe."