Elvis In Tokyo; Plays Final (?) Gigs With Attractions
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...
[Please use "Continued" icon
below for rest of review.]