Elvis & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton, Hanover Theatre, Worcester, MA, March 4, 2023

Pretty self-explanatory
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Man out of Time
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Elvis & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton, Hanover Theatre, Worcester, MA, March 4, 2023

Post by Man out of Time »

Elvis and The Imposters with Charlie Sexton play the Hanover Theatre, in Worcester, MA , on Saturday March 4, 2023.

Writing in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, on November 18, Richard Duckett previewed the show thus:

"WORCESTER — The Grammy Award-winning Elvis Costello & The Imposters will come to The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts for a show at 8 p.m. March 4 as part of the spring leg of "The Boy Named If & Other Favorites" tour.

Costello, the legendary English singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer, is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.

The Imposters have been Costello's bandmates for over 20 years.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters toured earlier this summer behind their new album "The Boy Named If," which has been nominated for Best Rock Album at the 2023 Grammy Awards.

They previously won a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album "Look Now" in 2020. Costello also won a Grammy in 1999 for the soundtrack for "The Irish in America: Long Journey Home."

Tickets for the March 4 show are $49.50, $69.50, $89.50, $99.50 and $129.50 depending on seat location. Call 877-571-7469 or go to thehanovertheatre.org."

Elvis and The Attractions played a show at the Centrum in Worcester in 1984 and Elvis played a solo show at the DCU Center in Worcester in 2007, supporting Bob Dylan.

All seats in the "orchestra" area appear to have sold, but seats are available still in the balcony.

Who's going?


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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton, Hanover Theatre, Worcester, MA, March 4, 2023

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Anyone?
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton, Hanover Theatre, Worcester, MA, March 4, 2023

Post by Man out of Time »

Stage setlist:
Stage setlist (signed)
Stage setlist (signed)
2023-03-04 Worcester.jpg (87.96 KiB) Viewed 2552 times
Anyone know what was actually played?

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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton, Hanover Theatre, Worcester, MA, March 4, 2023

Post by And No Coffee Table »

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... _Worcester

01. This Year's Girl
02. Green Shirt
03. Either Side Of The Same Town
04. Hetty O'Hara Confidential
05. Radio, Radio
06. I Don't Want Your Lyndon Johnson - including Gimme That Wine
07. When I Was Cruel No. 2 - including Dancing Queen riff
08. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down
09. High Fidelity
10. Everyday I Write The Book
11. Come The Meantimes
12. Watching The Detectives
13. Accidents Will Happen
14. Toledo
15. Sulphur To Sugarcane
16. Poisoned Rose
17. Blood & Hot Sauce
18. A Face In The Crowd
19. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea
20. Magnificent Hurt
21. Alison
22. Farewell, OK
23. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton, Hanover Theatre, Worcester, MA, March 4, 2023

Post by johnfoyle »

https://eu.telegram.com/story/entertain ... 966941007/



Elvis Costello's aim is true and right on target at the Hanover Theatre
CRAIG S. SEMON
WORCESTER — Although new wave's quintessential angry young man is not so angry or young anymore, Elvis Costello still has plenty of fire in his belly and stinging bile in his lyrics, as he proved Saturday night during a sold-out show at The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts.

Hot off the heels of his 10-night run last month at New York City’s Gramercy Theatre, Costello took his “The Boy Named If & Other Favourites” roadshow to Worcester.

Backed up by his beloved band The Imposters — keyboardist Steve Nieve, drummer Pete Thomas, bassist Davey Faragher and newest member, guitar virtuoso Charlie Sexton — the 68-year-old British rocker teased and flirted with his diehard fans by opening with the one-two punch of “This Year’s Girl” and “Green Shirt,” both of which were knockouts.

While the evening had plenty of Costello classics (many which were reinterpreted and arranged differently), the show had its fair share of deep cuts, newer tracks and even unreleased songs that were to be played during his uncompromising and inspired, 2½-hour, 23-song set.

This turned out to be a good thing. And the best thing about it was that Costello sounded great.

'A pleasure to be back in Worcester'
Not only was Costello’s voice in fine form, it sounds like it’s getting better with age. And, Costello, one of the few artists who is as compelling setting up a narrative to a song as he is singing a song, was in rare form chatting up a storm. Like Springsteen and Bono before him, Costello is clearly the next rocker that should do a spoken word and song stage show about his life.

As he switched guitars, Costello, who had played here in the city twice before, said hello to the crowd by saying, “It is a pleasure to be back here in Worcester, Massachusetts.” No. The pleasure was all ours.

After eyeballing the balcony and asking is “anybody getting up to mischief,” or “covered in scandal and shame,” Costello kicked into “Hetty O’Hara Confidential” from 2020’s “Hey Clockface.”

The story of a gossip columnist with the power to make or break a career with the stroke of her poison pen, “Hetty O’Hara Confidential” is the kind of musical morality play you would expect from the pop master.

Before biting the hand that feels him, Costello talked about his “somewhat infamous appearance” on “Saturday Night Live” in 1977, and how he decided at the last minute to rewrite “Radio Radio” and turn the originally conceived affectionate ode to the airwaves into a scathing attack on corporate fools trying to anesthetize the way that you feel.

Alas, it might have got him banned from “SNL” but “Radio Radio” still has a place in our hearts and the version he played Saturday night was totally awesome.

Showing he shares a kinship with Springsteen beyond both being clever songsmiths, Costello hilariously talked about his Catholic upbringing and how when, in preparation of his First Communion, he found himself in the confessional booth and felt, despite being free of sin, that he had to confess to something.

“So I confessed to adultery. I didn’t know what it meant but it sounded like fun,” Costello said. “And when I came to Worcester, I found out it was.” It wasn’t the only time he delivered a killer punchline at the city’s expense.

Costello proves old habits die hard on "When I Was Cruel No. 2,'' a richly detailed narrative that unfolds after a wedding for a former trade show model turned wife No. 4. Accompanied by slow, snarling guitars and swanky piano that sounded as though it was lifted from a '60s spy flick, “When I Was Cruel No. 2” was classic Costello, down to the title, even though some of the fair-weather Elvis fans might not have been familiar with it before Saturday night.

But, thankfully, with the pristine sound-system at the Hanover, you could hear every biting word in Costello’s stinging, winning narrative.

Band's versatility on display
With the aid of his trusty Fender Strat, Costello delivered a quick, one-two punch in the form of the pristine, power-pop opuses, “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down” and “High Fidelity.” Not only were the two numbers a lively, dynamic showcase for Costello’s versatile band, it got the audience to stand up on its feet and dance along.

When he wasn’t belting out the audio book for his musical memoirs in process, Costello was dueling guitars with Sexton on the barebones reworking of “Every Day I Write the Book.”

It took Costello's killer delivery and clever wordplay to blow the audience away with his slinky and shadowy, neo-noir ditty, “Watching the Detectives.”

Nieves tickled the ivories while Costello pulled at the heartstrings on the massive reworking of “Accidents Will Happen.”

Costello sat down in a cushioned chair and chatted about his 30-year friendship with celebrated sophisticated pop composer Burt Bacharach, before giving him a fitting tribute on the Costello-Bacharach collaboration, “Toledo.”

With Costello delicately plucking an acoustic guitar, the song is vintage Bacharach while the heartache is true Costello. By song’s end, Costello received a well-deserved standing ovation from the audience.

On his playfully scandalous, speakeasy romp, "Sulphur to Sugarcane," Costello delivered a politically incorrect travelogue of hot-to-trot trollop stops across the United States including our beloved Worcester. Inspired by cities he played at during his opening slot on Bob Dylan's fall 2007 tour (which included a stop at the DCU Center), Costello whimsically weaved together salacious couplets of the willingness of women in some overnight destinations to drop their knickers.

In actuality, Worcester got off easy, so to speak, as evident in the lines, "Down in Bridgeport/The woman will kill you for sport/But in Worcester, Massachusetts/They just love my sauce/The woman in Poughkeepsie/Take their clothes off when they're tipsy/But I hear in Ypsilanti /They don't wear any panties."

Despite being British, Costello announced his candidacy for U.S. president Saturday night. Realizing it’s not in his birthright to do so, Costello advised that if anyone is actually foolish to run for the commander-in-chief’s position, they need a good campaign song. And Costello served a piping hot political jingle in the making with “Blood & Hot Sauce.” Behind the piano, Costello joyfully sang the praises of the burning condiment while making promises of a better economy with the urgency of southern preacher at a gospel tent revival.


After doing some serious wailing on the guitar alongside Sexton on “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” Costello joked about how when he first toured the U.S., he could play his whole musical catalog in 36 minutes. Then, he was able to whittle it down to 19½ minutes, but to do that he had to exorcise his sole love ballad from the setlist, which he did, and he amusingly explained why.

“It (love ballads) was good enough for Engelbert (Humperdinck), David Soul and Lionel Richie, but I wanted to be miserable and I made a good (expletive) career out of it.”

Despite his animosity towards love ballads, Costello's “Alison” is not your typical love ballad. It’s a smart, sentimental but schmaltz-free classic. And, as expected when played, “Alison” turned into an audience sing-along and showstopper.

Although it was a last-minute replacement from Costello’s arena-friendly aerobic workout “Pump It Up," “Farewell OK,” from last year’s “The Boy Named If,” was the perfect kiss-off song to bring the show into the homestretch.

But no proper Costello show would be complete without the Nick Lowe-penned classic “(What’s So Funny ‘bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” a song that was great the first time we heard it in ‘79 and, like Costello, actually gets better every time you hear it.
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