06.09.2017
ELVIS COSTELLO TAKES FANS INTO HIS ‘IMPERIAL BEDROOM’ FOR A TERRIFIC SHOW AT THE GREEK THEATRE IN L.A.
Orange County Register: Peter Larsen: June 5th 2017:
Elvis Costello and the Attractions released “Imperial Bedroom” in 1982 and so much did I love that album that I convinced the guy at the record store to sell me the promo poster off his wall, a photo of the singer-songwriter under which his name was printed next to an image of the album cover beneath which a one-word question – “Masterpiece?” – was posed.
I thought so then and after seeing Elvis Costello & the Imposters perform nearly all of it at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday I still do. “Imperial Bedroom,” Costello’s seventh studio album, marked a move toward a more ornate style of songwriting and production, a step beyond “Trust” from a year earlier, and a signal of the restless musical heart and soul he’d explore in the more than 20 albums that have followed.
As Costello noted near the finish of the 30 songs he scattered across two and a half hours, his debut record, “My Aim Is True,” was recorded in 24 hours, while for the featured album here “we booked ourselves 12 weeks in the studio, and we thought, ‘Now we’re really living!’”
Costello and the Imposters – keyboardist Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas from the Attractions, bassist Davey Faragher the longtime replacement for Attraction Bruce Thomas – went on stage just after 8 p.m., opening the night with “The Loved Ones” while many fans were still making their way into the venue through long lines at the security checkpoints. After “… And In Every Home” he paused to chat with the crowd for a moment, the first of many cheerfully sardonic asides.