07.26.2017
A MISTY OUTDOOR EVENING COULDN’T DAMPEN ELVIS COSTELLO’S ENERGY
Portland Press Herald: Robert Ker: July 25th 2017
Last fall, Elvis Costello embarked on a tour devoted to his 1982 album, “Imperial Bedroom.” It is among the artist’s most beloved albums, containing opulent, occasionally experimental production (by Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick) that makes it a bit of an outlier in his early catalogue.
Something about revisiting these songs on stage in 2016 must have goosed Costello’s creative juices, however, as he kept the tour going well into this year, bringing it to Thompson’s Point on a misty evening Monday.
Typical of this tour, Costello and his band sprinkled many songs from “Imperial Bedroom” throughout a wide-ranging set of roughly 30 songs, including nearly every song that casual fans might know, as well as nuggets for the diehards. Some of the songs indirectly related to “Bedroom” in ways that were not immediately obvious. “Shot With His Own Gun,” for example, was among the first songs he composed on piano in the fashion that he wrote the “Bedroom” songs.