Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve, Glasgow review: 'transcendent musical moments'

Elvis Costello | Getty Images

Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve, Theatre Royal, Glasgow ★★★★

Elvis Costello is alive to the ghosts in the walls of historical venues such as the Theatre Royal and was quick to evoke the vaudeville spirit of Sir Harry Lauder (a frequent panto star here a century ago) if not his musical catalogue. You would not put it past him though – Costello is a musician who spans traditions with ease. As he reminded this enraptured audience, he comes from four generations of musicians and his earliest musical memories were of hearing his dad sing with the Joe Loss Orchestra.

Costello has carved his own path, however, often in the company of his accompanist on these semi-stripped-back shows. Billed as Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve, this version of events involved two men, three (ninja-like) roadies, multiple keyboards and guitars and two hours of songs from across a near 50-year partnership.

There were tales of Paisley punk, badinage concerning his father’s facility for Spanish, his own Spanish language lament resolving into Almost Blue, tributes to the sage-like Bobbie Gentry, including a brief burst of her Ode to Billie Joe, and Mose Allison mixed with Dave and Ansell Collins, not to mention a standing ovation for his rendition of Charles Aznavour’s She.

His own songs, however, were the star attraction for most of the assembly, from the pleasingly odd spindly version of one of the pair’s earliest collaborations, Watching the Detectives, with Nieve on melodica to a barnstorming Face in the Crowd, written for a new musical by Young Vic, and culminating in a run of searing war and peace songs from Oliver’s Army and Shipbuilding via newer number We Are All Cowards Now to the cathartic jubilation of Nick Lowe’s (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.

At one point Costello literally took his hat off to the reaction, but how else to respond in the company of such transcendent musical moments?