11.16.2021
ELVIS COSTELLO DELIGHTS AT YOUTUBE THEATER WITH SONGS FROM HIS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
Daily Breeze: Peter Larsen: November 14th 2021
Elvis Costello had a choice at the finish of “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea,” a crowd-pleasing early hit played late in his show at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood on Saturday.
Should he blaze straight ahead into “Radio, Radio,” an even bigger fan favorite, hovering out there yet to be played in his set? Or take a hard left into “Magnificent Hurt,” the first single of his forthcoming album “The Boy Named If,” and a song many in the crowd wouldn’t know by words or music.
It’s kind of a false premise, though, because if you know Elvis like we know Elvis, you know there was never any choice at all. For in a career filled with moments of unpredictability, Costello fans can pretty much expect the unexpected and that the mercurial singer-songwriter will head anywhere he wants to go.
And over the course of 26 songs and nearly two-and-a-half hours, Elvis Costello and the Imposters delivered a terrific night that time-traveled across Costello’s songbook, past, present, and future.