WARREN, Ohio – A portion of Elvis Costello’s concert at Packard Music Hall on Tuesday was more like an intimate supper club performance, with the rock legend reworking his tunes with a relaxed pace and soulful style.
It didn’t have the passion of what you heard on the radio in the 1970s and ’80s, but rather a maturity that comes with age and looking back in time.
It took a moment to realize what Costello was up to. Afterward, that rear-view mirror treatment of songs was enthralling.
The rearrangements weren’t at a Dylan-esque level that made the songs unrecognizable from the original version. But they were slower and showed a more personal approach from the 71-year-old rock great.
“I play them the way I feel them today,” is how he put it. The passing of years will do that.
Stage lights beamed upward on the red curtain backdrop behind the band. The effect made Costello and the Imposters – with guitarist Charlie Sexton on lead guitar – the sole point of visibility in a completely darkened room.
Sexton was a core member of Bob Dylan’s band from 1999 to 2019, so he was right at home with the late-career improvisational style.
Costello took to the piano for “Everyday I Write the Book,” and his tinkling flourishes were smoothed down by the drummer’s jazzy brush-strokes on the cymbals.
The set list also included a country song from the artist’s short Nashville phase in the early ’80s.
The tour, dubbed Radio Soul, has Costello performing songs from the powerful first 10 years of his career. It was those songs, and that passion, that put the Rock Hall of Famer in the pantheon of the greats.
The six-show U.S. leg of the tour followed an extensive European tour and is taking place mostly in theater-size halls. Warren was among the small-market stops – which also include Lancaster, Pa., and Muskegon, Mich. – and came just two days after Costello played the Agora in Cleveland.
The attendance was well-short of a sellout, but the crowd was fully aware of the rare luxury it was receiving.
Very few rockers reach the heights that Costello has attained, and this is an appropriate time to look back at his body of work. But the concert wasn’t a typical career retrospective “greatest hits” show.
Costello held court throughout the night, telling stories and sharing background between almost every song.
He varies his set list quite a bit from night to night, and he wisely guided the audience as to what it was about to hear.
There were some rarities, including a cover of Nick Lowe’s “Surrender to the Rhythm,” and “Losing You,” a reworked Costello song from years ago.
“Losing You” will appear on the artist’s “My Aim Is True (49th Anniversary Edition)” five-disc album package of rarities and oldies that will be released Oct. 2.
The concert started off at full-bore with the rockabilly “Mystery Dance.”
It morphed through Costello’s early years, with varying versions of hits like “Watching the Detectives,” “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down” and “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea.”
Costello shifted back to rock mode for a conclusion that earned a spot in my concert-memory archives. It featured some of the songwriting genius’s greatest songs, including “Alison,” “Pump It Up” and “(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding.”
Pictured at top: Elvis Costello and Charlie Sexton jam during Tuesday’s concert at Packard Music Hall.
For a complete overview of events in the area this weekend, check out The List.