Elvis In Hong Kong: Up For Grabs

"Forget Iraq ~ Rebuild New Orleans" - written on the back of Elvis Costello's guitar

Last night the Elvis Costello show rolled through our clotted metropolis of Hong Kong and put on a spectacle worthy of the ages. Throughout his over two-hour solo performance, Elvis finessed, lathered, charmed and slayed with the ferocity and precision of a matador in the ring. The stage was literally "in the round" with the crowd surrounding Elvis and prompting him at times to stroll the periphery, arm raised in mock self-aggrandisement like Mussolini at Rome's Palazzo Venezia. The only thing missing were chants of "Elvis Is King!"

With a wink to China's surveillance state, he opened with "Green Shirt" from 1979's Armed Forces:

There's a smart young woman on a light blue screen
Who comes into my house every night
And she takes all the red, yellow, orange and green
And she turns them into black and white

From there he dipped deeply into his rich catalogue, stretching from his first-ever recording - "Radio Sweetheart" - to the ragtime-inspired, "A Slow Drag With Josephine" off his most recent, the excellent, National Ransom. Highlights included a genuinely acoustic rendition of "Jimmie Standing in the Rain," done without electricity when he stepped away from the mic and unplugged his guitar; a mash-up of "New Amsterdam" and the Beatles' "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away"; a smoldering "Almost Blue," sung again unplugged as he strolled around the stage; a truly moving version of "Shipbuilding; and "Oliver's Army" with the shout out for us, "Hong Kong is up for grabs!"

There were times when a full band would have added more variety and nuance, specifically backing vocals on "Everyday I Write The Book" and the bass line for "Pump It Up." At one point during "Watching The Detectives" his guitar loops descended into a cacophony of ill-placed intentions as he appeared to struggle with trying to be a one-man karaoke machine. But these are minor quibbles for an artist, who at 56, can still dance about architecture with tragic hipsters half his age.



Here's a rough setlist:

Green Shirt
Veronica
Either Side of the Same Town
Bullets for the New Born King
New Amsterdam/You've Got to Hide Your Love Away (Beatles cover)
Jimmie Standing in the Rain
Everyday I Write the Book (a nod to Ron Sexsmith's version)
Bedlam
A Slow Drag with Josephine
Almost Blue
Watching the Detectives
Good Year for the Roses
Radio Sweetheart/Jackie Wilson Said (Van Morrison cover)
Brilliant Mistake
Alison/Somewhere Over the Rainbow/The Wind Cries Mary (Jimi Hendrix cover)
(What's So Funny 'bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?

Encore:
Beyond Belief
All or Nothing At All
She
Shipbuilding
(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
Oliver's Army

Encore 2:
National Ransom No. 2

Encore 3:
My Three Sons
Pump It Up

Dancing With Furniture: Musical Raves & Other Contortions

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid thing to want to do." – Elvis Costello

I have to agree with Elvis: music, like sex, is always better done than said. And dancing about architecture is a really stupid thing to want to do - dancing with furniture is way more sensible. In those moments when you’re left alone with nothing but an air-guitar, stupid things can start to look pretty interesting...even fun. Sometimes the only option is to indulge, get down and do the mother popcorn with the livingroom chair.



So, with the intention of having some fun I'm going to write about a few albums that have caused me to get up and dance like a fool with the furniture in my room...albums that have yanked the "gabba, gabba, hey" from my guts and rocked my world.

First up, Astral Weeks by Van Morrison (1968), an album that evokes the joy of a sunny day by the water- intense, breezy and alive with possibilities.

From the far side of the ocean
If I put the wheels in motion

Like a Celtic Sufi in the throes of a whirling trance, Van channels the spirits of Solomon Burke and Chester "Howlin' Wolf' Burnett on this, his first complete studio album. The jazz-inflected percussion of "The Way Young Lovers Do", and the fluttering, hummingbird strum of "Sweet Thing" combine to create the perfect fusion of pop, jazz, folk and soul. Nothing before or since has sounded quite like it and amid all the music something intrinsically Irish emerges:

We strolled through fields all wet with rain
And back along the lane again

A friend and I followed the sound to Ireland, busking from Belfast to Cork. In Sligo we got billed as "The Men Who Drank Canada Dry". Very soon after we became "The Men Who Ireland Sucked Dry".

Next up, Survival by Bob Marley and the Wailers (1979). This is the culmination and most consistent articulation of Natty Dread's career. Marley fuses the smooth soul of Curtis Mayfield to Haile Selassie's vision of racial harmony and delivers a sonic proclamation about liberation and independence.

Tracks like "Africa Unite", "One Drop" and "Zimbabwe" were said to inspire the birth of a nation and Marley did play at the Zimbabwe's Independence Day Celebrations in April of 1980, the last time the British Flag flew over Africa:

Africans a-liberate Zimbabwe
Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny

Holding it all together as always, is bassist Aston "Family Man" Barrett's ganja-rasta-riddim making this one of the greatest reggae albums ever produced.