Elvis Costello & The Imposters State Theatre Sydney 23 April 2014

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Costello Sign 2014.jpg

At the risk of sounding like some been there, done that, got the t-shirt, wrote the book, waiting to star in the movie type, I have to say that the most interesting aspect of the fifth Costello and The Imposters concert I've caught since early December came before and after the actual concert.

That says more about Hughesy and the circumstances in which I live than it does about Costello, but it says a fair bit about the man as well as quite a lot about the way popular music has morphed over the past fifty years. 

All of which is interesting, at least from where I'm sitting. 

Actually, sitting is a key factor in the experience this time around, since Elvis had a significant section of the crowd up, out of their seats and down in front of the stage very early in the piece. It was fairly obvious he was playing to, and feeding off the enthusiasm of, those right under his nose, which might affect your perception if you were one of those disinclined to stand who happened to have a seat towards the front of the stalls. 

That was me, more or less, but the occupants of the seats at the end of Row L had headed for the front so it was easy enough to move to the side for an uninterrupted view of proceedings.

So you might have been underwhelmed if you weren't down towards the front, and you may well have been underwhelmed by a show that was slightly shorter (twenty-five numbers, as opposed to thirty-plus from the recent Spinning Songbook shows in Japan) than others you've experienced, or by a set list that was light on for a few of the usual suspects that seemed to be automatic inclusions in the Spinning Songbook roster, or by what you might see as a relative dearth of obscurities, or... 

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© Ian Hughes 2015