Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve, Bristol Beacon review - so much more than a retread of the master's hits

Apart from being one of Britain’s greatest songsmiths of the past 50 years, Elvis Costello – from the early adoption of the rock’n’roll King’s first name – has produced a form of naked self-expression, blurred by intricately-tailored pretence. Though this is “art”, never artifice.

The geek of old has gone through several phases of metamorphosis – though something of the original persona remains, albeit battered and matured. While he was fast and furious in youth, a New Wave phenomenon, he has found a more measured stride, and the irony that was played down is now something Elvis revels in. When he acknowledges ecstatic applause it is done with a canny and almost bizarre mixture of Sinatra-esque self-assurance and boy-next-door connivance.

Without the Attractions, in duo with his perennial accomplice, the classically trained Steve Nieve, and a young digital backing track whizz, he presents a show in which many of the hits are re-interpreted, as Bob Dylan so wonderfully does, recognisable in essence though skilfully given a new life, as it they’d been written yesterday. Whether it’s “Watching the Detectives” or “(I Don’t Want to Go To) Chelsea”, there is a new-born fury rather than a senior’s resignation. The anger that was always there, though less blatant and obvious than the ranting of the punks around him, but it has a world-weary quality, shining through a passionate version of  the masterpiece “Shipbuilding”, expressing an acceptance of human failing and treachery that packs a punch the usually dispensed routine of just covering hits. This one feels real, very much of the present, not just a well-worn recall of the Thatcher years.

The voice sometimes goes a little off-piste, as in the surprising and suitably stripped-down version of bluesman Jimmy Reed's “I Want to Get Some Insurance”. It’s not always clear whether he’s purposefully loosening his pitch, to express perhaps the vulnerability that has been his hallmark from “Less Than Zero” on, or just a little tired. On “She”, the song originally made famous by Charles Aznavour, he pours his loving heart out, hitting the high notes with passion and contagious pleasure, just as he has done with torch songs he co-wrote with Burt Bacharach, one of which, “I Still Have That Other Girl”, provides another high point of the set.

There is variety in the show, from the dark menace and heavily distorted guitar of “When I was Cruel No 2” to the sweet acoustic accompaniments of softer songs. There is also a lot of showmanship. He acts out the perfect entertainer, in homage to his dad, the singer Ross McManus, whose presence he conjures time and time again on stage, a touching act of showbiz ancestor-worship. Like many of us, as he gets older and references mortality, he seems to embody that dad of his, his versatility, exuberance and sense of play.

Steve Nieve provides wonderful support, from virtuosic runs on the Yamaha grand to those staccato chords on the Farfisa-soundalike keyboard, as reminiscent in 2024 of ? and the Mysterians, as they were back in the late 1970s. As ever, Elvis and his collaborators display their deep knowledge of the rock and pop canon. He was of a generation that saw that pop was beginning to eat itself, probably the most aware, with an encyclopaedic connoisseur’s take on the music’s history, from folk to soul, Brill Building hits to the best of jazz. As he’s matured, just as Bob Dylan has done Sinatra albums or Rod Stewart given expert renditions of the great American songbook, Elvis Costello pays that kind of homage, still able to rock, but less of a rebel now – albeit giving a fury-laced version of “Oliver's Army” – assuming the mantle of an elder, and enjoying every bit of it.

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