Alone Together
Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve blend transcendent beauty with brutal truth at UB’s Center for the Arts
As one of the most sophisticated and incisive lyricist of his era, Elvis Costello has consistently avoided painting in bold strokes, instead masterfully manipulating the space afforded by the canvas to craft esoteric, sometimes abstract artworks. Stating the obvious with well-worn tropes scrawled in capital letters has been anathema to Costello, it would seem.
And yet, as he took the stage at UB’s Center for the Arts on Friday evening (March 7, 2025), Costello’s choice of opening tune seemed anything but obtuse, and it’s delivery was drenched in a pathos that cut right through the complexity of the imagery.
“When I came here tonight my pockets were overflowing/They took my return ticket without me even knowing/Well, I pray to the saints and all the martyrs/For the secret life of Frank Sinatra/But none of these things have come to pass/In America the law is a piece of ass/Deportee…”
Alone, seated, a lone lamplight bathing him in David Lynch-esque shadow, Costello poured his heart into “The Deportees Club,” a tune initially released in a version by the Attractions on 1984’s “Goodbye Cruel World” album, and later, in reimagined form as “Deportee,” on the expanded 2024 edition of “King of America.” The performance was riveting.
As he was joined by longtime compatriot Steve Nieve (pronounced “Naive,” though I doubt he remains so, after 50 years in this business), Costello then grabbed his trademark Fender Jazzmaster, as an eerie, noir drum loop laid down a Tom Waits-like groove, and launched into an acerbic take on “When I Was Cruel No. 2,” in the process making it plain to the assembled that the evening would hardly be a warm, cuddly, acoustic guitar-pillowed trip down memory lane.
Costello has written some of the most compelling pop tunes of the past 50 years, and he sprinkled them liberally throughout Friday’s set. Ah, but lest you make the hasty assumption that this was a greatest hits cash-grab, it should be noted that all of these songs appeared in vastly different clothing than they wore when we first met them. New keys, new melodies, new arrangements, varied time signatures - all were brought to bear by a man who clearly considers his songs to be living, still-evolving beings. In this manner, Costello is not dissimilar to Bob Dylan, who seems to reimagine his oeuvre every month or so. This proved to be nothing but a good thing, throughout the show.
A beautifully roughshod “Less Than Zero” clearly moved the crowd, and proved that, even in a duo format, Costello and Nieve could still summon the glorious cacophony known and loved by fans of the Attractions and, later, the Impostors.
By this point, Costello and Nieve were fully warmed up, and an inventively arranged “Watch Your Step” proved to be an early highlight, Costello’s tenor firmly grabbing and holding notes at the top of his range, and gliding gracefully into falsetto punctuations.
“Shot With His Own Gun” was presented as Kurt Weil-like theatre, its dramatic narrative well-served by a startlingly inventive piano solo, which earned Nieve a hearty ovation from the crowd. The pair’s ability to summon such high musical drama with only one voice and a piano was throughly impressive.
Another standout came in the form of a positively face-slamming take on “No Flag,” an under-appreciated (it seems to me) track from 2020’s excellent “Hey Clockface.” Costello did not preface the song - which again featured a darkly cinematic drum-loop functioning as a stark rhythm section - with any expository preamble, but its lyrics seem wholly of-the-moment. “No time for this kind of love/No flag waving high above/No sign for the dark place that I live/No god for the damn that I don't give,” delivering what sure felt like brutal truth.
Costello donned a 12-string acoustic - “The best $150 I ever spent,” he quipped - and was joined by Nieve on melodica for “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes,” which found many members of the crowd singing along, a practice they’d continue at various points throughout the evening.
And then Costello, who’d proven to possess an easy-going charm, sly wit, and self-deprecating sense of humor throughout, offered the one-liner of the evening: “I learned this next song from an old folk singer by the name of Timothée Chalamet,” he deadpanned, before launching into a radically reworked, blatantly Dylan-esque take on the McManus-McCartney gem “Veronica,” which sailed forth on the wave of a rolling 6/8- time, finger-picked acoustic guitar pattern.
Costello sat at Nieve’s piano for a soul-stirring interpretation of “A Face In the Crowd,” a piece he wrote for the stage musical of the same name, its lyric depicting a grifter’s travels, culminating in the singer totally nailing the dramatic concluding high notes.
We were grateful for a nod to Costello’s songwriting partnership with the late, great Burt Bacharach, in the form of the heart-rending, painterly ballad “God Give Me Strength,” which featured Costello once gaining totally owning his upper range, the song ably served by Nieve’s transcendent piano accompaniment.
Part Three-Penny Opera, part latter-period Tom Waits, part singer-songwriter, part punk-adjacent rocker, part ‘character well-acquainted with whiling away many a wee, small hour on a barstool in a public house’, part pop classicist, and ALL Costello, this duo performance was at turns openly uplifting and wholly disquieting.
The Center for the Arts proved to be the perfect setting for this dramatic song-cycle, as every nuance in both voice and instrumentation was pristinely audible.
Even without the always impressive power of his full band, Costello’s bold body of work was ably celebrated.
And though he didn’t write them, these lyrics, forever associated with Costello, formed a pertinent parting question: What’s so damn funny about peace, love and understanding?
Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve
UB Center for the Arts
3/7/2025
Setlist:
Deportee
When I was Cruel No. 2
Less Than Zero
Watch Your Step
Shot With His Own Gun
Harpies Bizarre
(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea
No Flag
(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
Veronica
A Face In the Crowd
The Invisible Man
Dio come ti amo > Almost Blue
Clubland
Accidents Will Happen
God Give Me Strength
Watching the Detectives
Alison
I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down
(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding
I have seen Costello several times over the years, the first time was in early 1981, and this show was one of his most captivating. Deportees was a brilliant opening!
Bravo maestro.