The audience at the mid-sized theater known as the Kosei Nenkin

Kaikan (Welfare Pension Hall) was quietly bopping to big-band jazz when Elvis

Costello and The Attractions bounded on stage at a few minutes past 7:00 P.M.

last night (Mon., Sept. 9), for the first of a four night run here in Tokyo.

Costello's tour of Japan, which began last Friday with a show in Osaka, and

winds up next Sunday (Sept. 15) in Nagoya, represents the final series of shows

in support of his latest album All This Useless Beauty, and are

apparently also the last shows that he will be doing with The

Attractions.

While there was no last-shows-with-the-Attractions-related

banter from the stage at the Welfare Pension Hall (where the reserved seats in

this acoustically magnificent room were going for 7,000 yen, or about 70

dollars), it was pretty clear that Costello and his back-up band of long

standing are going in different musical directions. During the course of the

two hour concert they appeared torn between the desire on one hand to emphasize

the immaculately structured, metaphor driven songs for which the prolific

Costello is known, and attempts to demonstrate that The Attractions are the

kind of band that has played together for so long that they are able to take

off on flights of musical improvisation and still make it work.

Monday

night in Tokyo, they opened with straight ahead, rocking renditions of

"Lipstick Vogue" and "Man Out of Time," with Costello looking sporty in blazer,

slacks, and polka-dot shirt. So far so good...

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