03.05.2020
ELVIS COSTELLO AT SUNDERLAND EMPIRE – ‘STILL AGITATING AND NOT READY TO JOIN THE ESTABLISHMENT
Chronicle Live: Graeme Whitfield: 4th March 2020.
Elvis brought the Imposters to Sunderland Empire and proved he is ‘still agitating and not ready to join the establishment quite yet’
Forty years after last playing Sunderland, and two since a gig in Newcastle showed he had come back too early from cancer treatment, Elvis Costello returned to the North East seemingly hellbent on proving he remains in rude musical health.
His show at the Sunderland Empire may well have included some of the same material played at Tiffany’s nightclub in 1980, drawing as it did largely on the early period of his career when the guitars were loud and the songs bursting with urgency.