ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE IMPOSTERS @Symphony Hall, Birmingham 31/5/13

RTM saw Elvis Costello for the first time last year. Same venue, same set up. A big wheel on stage members of the audience spinning said sphere and Elvis and band playing whatever it lands on, while spinner watches the song from the on stage bar. It is all very relaxed.

In our review of the 2012 show, we wrote that we didn’t expect to see “a lady dancing in a cage wearing a short purple dress and knee length boots” during the course of a singer/songwriter evening. The lady, the boots and cage are back this time too, but this year what shocked us was Costello himself. Towards the end of this mammoth two and a half hour show, he plays “I Want You” and during in the song, he rips out an absolutely stunning guitar solo. If nothing else, it proves that his gigs always have the power to surprise.

The rest of it was pretty damn good too. He and his band The Imposters began with “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” and also played the always welcome “Radio Radio” before the first audience member, given the chance to “come from the stalls to the stars” as host for the evening Napoleon Dynamite puts it spins “Oliver’s Army” which is played with a slightly altered arrangement. That “Dynamite” actually is Costello with a different hat on tells you all you need to know about the evening.

Hostess “The Mysterious Josephine” plucks some more people out of the crowd and “Pump It Up” is a winner, someone else wants to hear “Good Year For The Roses” doesn’t spin it, but it is played anyway.

Around half the songs are audience picks, which says much for the abilities of Imposters to play such a repertoire, while others are chosen by Costello himself (“If you can’t cheat in Birmingham, then where can you cheat?” he says with a grin)

The main set closes with “Tramp The Dirt Down” a song which you suspect has just a touch more resonance this year, but the band are far from finished. During “Watching The Detectives” Costello goes for a stroll around the crowd, picks three more people out for another spin, plays “(I Don’t Want to Go) To Chelsea and a fantastic and plaintive “Shipbuilding” but still isn’t done. A second encore which includes “Out Of Time” and “(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love And Understanding” is what actually ends things.

Only an artist with a fine and extensive back catalogue could pull a show like this off. And only one with supreme confidence in their songs would try it. Far more than just a conventional gig, this is a extravaganza which takes elements of comedy (Costello is genuinely funny on occasion), variety, fairground and old style entertainment, and you cannot say fairer than that. It would be nothing without the songs, however,  but as everyone knows Costello has good ones in spades.

Quite superb – and unlike the last time we saw this show, we knew that it would be. 

Elvis Costello And The Imposters @Birmingham Symphony Hall 15/5/12

If I had made a list of what I didn’t expect to see at an Elvis Costello gig then pretty near the top of the list would have been a lady dancing in a cage wearing a short purple dress and knee length boots.

But that is precisely the sight that greets us when Elvis and his band take to the stage. And if that confounds expectations then the format of the show is a real mind bender.

Stage right there sits something that looks like it came from the old Wheel of Fortune TV show, but instead of amounts in the segments there are song titles. The wheel will be spun by members of the audience and wherever it lands that song will played.

There is a circus type theme elsewhere – this explains the dancing girl in a cage and also the test of strength machine. It could be an interesting night.

Of course no amount of gimmicks in the world would make any difference if it wasn’t for the songs. This show is going to be three hours long give or take and you can only give a monkeys about a spinning wheel for so long.  Thankfully, Costello has built up a back catalogue over the years that is the equal of nearly every singer-songwriter type, and is far better than most.

The format for these shows is the same. Each night, the first four songs are replicated, so it starts with “I Hope Your Happy Now” moves into Nick Lowe’s “Heart of the City” and climaxes with a magnificent “Radio Radio” – its line about “being overwhelmed by indifference and the promise of early bed” still perhaps one of the best discussions of apathy in music.

With that, Costello removes his pork pie hat and replaces it with a great big Topper and a cane. You almost expect him to go all Alice Copper and start singing “School’s Out” but instead he is playing ringmaster and explaining what is going on tonight. And he’s as good as his word. He covers “She” and strolls round the crowd, a parade of people come up to spin the wheel and the band of Imposters plays superbly. A chap wins the strong man test and gets to pick any song he likes – he picks something obscure and Elvis looks delighted. Its that type of evening.

If anything though, the encore ups things still further. After playing two songs mentioning Josephine – one on a ukulele and a Chuck Berry cover (complete with very funny story) he delivers the evening’s coup-de-grace, a simply stunning rendition of the anti Tory “Tramp The Dirt Down.”

With that, the band joins him and it’s a run through some greatest hits, including “Oliver’s Army” and (I Don’t Want To) Go To Chelsea, before Elvis himself spins the wheels and gets “Watching The Detectives” before “(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love And Understanding” closes things up.

Sometimes you go to a gig, expecting the gig of the year and it doesn’t deliver, it’s much better the other way around, when you aren’t expecting much and it absolutely marvellous. And that is exactly what happened tonight.

Just like the dancing girls I wasn’t expecting that either.