Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

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Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

Post by Man out of Time »

The "We're All Going On A Summer Holiday" tour continues on June 21, 2023 at the Steelhouse, Omaha, NE.

The venue opened as recently as May 12, 2023. According to the venue website, the Steelhouse has up to 3,000 standing capacity and there is no similar capacity venue in Omaha. It cost over $100m to build. The Steelhouse Omaha is for everyone with a focus on the 18-45 age demographic. Elvis' audience may be slightly outside that demographic.

Elvis has previously played at the smaller Holland Performing Arts Center in Omaha (in 2016). In 2021 Elvis and The Layabouts (Pete, Davey and Charlie) played a free show in the Memorial Park in Omaha. Steve was absent because he was unable to travel from France to the USA.

Ticket prices for The Steelhouse show start at $100 and go up to $350 for the best front row seats. The show has sold pretty well, so far. There are some seats left in the "stalls" and more available in the balcony. Also maybe 20 "verified resale" seats to be had in the stalls too, if that is your thing.

Who's going?

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Brodsky
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

Post by Brodsky »

I’m thinking about it, but hotel prices look outrageous for Omaha, Nebraska. Turns out this show is happening the same week as the College Baseball World Series, which is why room prices are so high. I might drive up, but it will be an impromptu trip, if I do it!
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

Post by Brodsky »

Decided to go to the show at the last minute, after all. I just bought tickets a few minutes ago for tomorrow night's show at the Steelhouse!!! My wife and I are going to drive from Denver to Omaha in the morning.

It looks like a bunch of tickets in the front 4-5 rows just opened up. I think these were high priced VIP tickets, but I just got two in the 2nd row for only $89.50 each (before Ticketmaster fees, of course. :| ) Get 'em while they last! There are a bunch of tickets still available.
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

Post by sweetest punch »

Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

Post by Man out of Time »

Concert review posted at Omaha Buzz on June 22, 2023.

"Elvis Costello Review
2023-06-21 Omaha Buzz
2023-06-21 Omaha Buzz
2023-06-21 Omaha photo ob.jpg (133.23 KiB) Viewed 4422 times
I did end up pulling the trigger at the last moment and attending the Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe show at Steelhouse Omaha last night, and I am glad I did. We got to the venue and found our seats, and minutes later Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets took to the stage. He began with my favorite song of his, “So It Goes,” and was in fine voice. The Los Straitjackets are a crack band on their own and perfect for Lowe, as they know each other well and have collaborated for a long time. Where do we go from there? Lowe’s catalog of music he has written and recorded, written for other people, and produced is massive. He would go on to perform quite a bit of stuff from his early solo career, including deeper cuts like “Raging Eyes” and “Without Love”. No “I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass” “Heart Of The City” or “Mary Provost”. At 75 years old and with a career like the one he has had, he can play whatever he wants. He was charming on stage, complimenting the audience and humbling himself as the warm up act. He would leave the stage at one point to give surf rock band Los Straitjackets their spotlight on a couple tracks. He bookended that segment with two songs from his 2020 album with Los Straitjackets, entitled Walkabout. In the mix were also “Battlefield” which was recorded by Paul Carrack, and the fun “Half A Boy And Half A Man”, before the inevitable “Cruel To Be Kind.” I was hoping that he would close out with the Rockpile song “When I Write The Book” like he sometimes does, but instead we got “I Knew The Bride When She Used To Rock And Roll”. This was the song that was in my head when I woke up this morning.

This was the first seated show at The Steelhouse, and they filled the floor and the aisles with seats. It looked fine and seemed to work. I know I talked with some people during the break who had to move seats, because having a couple larger people sitting next to each other wasn’t working out. I personally don’t like to be seated at shows like this because sitting during songs like “Cruel To Be Kind” is torture, even though he kind of slowed that song down. You are also trapped when it is reserved and could end up with tall sitting people, talkers, and people getting up and down to use the restroom or get drinks the whole time. We had all of that during Nick Lowe’s set. We opted to stand at the back of the venue for Elvis Costello’s set. You can see perfectly fine there, and the sound is also good. One of the bars up front on the side closed, so we actually went and stood by that for a while and might have had the best vantage point in the place. Soon others would join and dance, and while security was present, they were not on top of us as nothing was getting out of hand. In my three shows at Steelhouse so far, I have nothing but great things to say about it. It’s so easy to move about, find the right sightlines, and avoid talkers, taller people, and what-have-you.

Elvis Costello took to the stage with his band, which thankfully included Steve Nieve, who didn’t make it to Costello’s Memorial Park show because of visa issues. Costello talked about that on stage and said the Omaha show is why this band is currently standing on stage. They brought in Charlie Sexton to fill out the band in 2021 for the park show, and he is also on this summer tour with Elvis. That Memorial Park show was filled with cover songs, and I don’t feel like Elvis sounded very good that night either, but all of those worries went away quickly here as he sounded great, pumping out “Radio Radio” and a beautiful version of “Accidents Will Happen,” showcasing his aged but still affecting vocals. Out of his last three albums, I really liked “Look Now” and “The Boy Named If”. I did not like Hey Clockface, but tonight he played “Hetty O’ Hara Confidential,” and I have to say that song ended up being one of, if not the highlight, of the night. Who would’ve thought that would be a great live song that would get the feet moving? “Magnificent Hurt” off of Boy Named If was another highlight. Another song off Hey Clockface that ended up being part of the more experimental jam segment of the night that allowed Nieve to do his thing was “We Are All Cowards Now”. There was a point around this time of the show where the big bass beats were so loud they vibrated leftover confetti from the Flaming Lips show out of the rafters. He covered many of the hit’s also including “Welcome To The Working Week”, “Allison ”, ” Watching The Detectives” and “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace Love & Understanding’ ‘. Costello and his band were in fine form last night, and it was fun to watch them stretch out and play a set of current material along with favorites. I had only seen the Memorial Park show and two other shows where he was the opening act, so it was nice for me to see a proper headlining show from him. "

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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

Post by Man out of Time »

Review by L. Kent Wolgamott published in the Lincoln Journal Star on June 22, 2023:

"Elvis Costello & the Imposters bring rearranged songs in bracingly refreshing Omaha show

OMAHA – Midway through Wednesday’s Steelhouse Omaha concert, Elvis Costello called Steve Nieve down to the grand piano for an old song that, he said, would be played “the way we hear it today.”

That song was 1979’s “Accidents Will Happen,” transformed into a piano ballad with Costello crooning at an old-style microphone while Nieve played stately piano before the rest of the Imposters came in and were joined by the audience in an Elvis-conducted call and response.

So went the rest of the two-hour show where Costello went full-on Bob Dylan, taking the band and fans through rearranged versions of songs, departing from the recordings to put new, sometimes revelatory spins on songs as old as 1977’s “Watching the Detectives,” the night’s encore song, and as recent as three songs from last year’s excellent “The Boy Called If.”

The latter included “Mr. Crescent,” that found Costello seated, wearing a bright green hat, and playing solo guitar, then segueing into a bluesy lounge take on “Allison” that had the crowd singing along with the chorus, kind of in time with the revamped tempo.

Costello was in, as they say, fine voice, delivering songs like “Watch Your Step” and “We Are All Cowards Now” with bite and passion. And it should go without saying that the Imposters demonstrated once again that they’re a fine band perfectly attuned with its leader.

The other most notable overall aspect of the show was Costello’s guitar work. Perhaps because his guitar was augmented by that of “special guest” Charlie Sexton. Together with the new arrangements, Costello’s guitar was prominent and impressive, and it was captivating to hear him go fretboard to fretboard with the Austin guitar slinger, who, somehow fittingly, spent time as a Dylan band member.

“We’re going to do a Merle Haggard song,” Costello said before launching the Imposters into what he now calls “Welcome to the Working Man,” a fast-strummed country mashup of his “Welcome to the Working Week” and Haggard’s “Workingman Blues." Somehow, it really works live, capturing the essence of both and tying Costello directly to the country-music tradition Haggard embodied.

Not everything Costello tried worked – like incorporating electronic sounds into a couple songs. For the most part, the “new” versions opened up the songs for new interpretations from the listener as well as the musicians, making the show a bit challenging and continually interesting.

As always an engaging, entertaining showman, Costello told a few funny stories introducing songs and credited Omaha, more specifically his 2021 outdoor Memorial Park concert with bringing Sexton into the band.

“We were unable to have Steve Nieve with us that time,” he said. “Last time he was an international criminal and we couldn’t get him in the country. As a consequence we invited our special guest, Charlie Sexton, to play with us. And he’s still with us.”

Impressively, the set ended with a cascade of songs, performed with only the shortest, if any break between, starting with a taut, rapidly narrated “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” into the powerful ache of “Magnificent Hurt.”

“Then came the 1978 classic “Pump It Up,” the song that was closest to the familiar version and a perfect take on “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love and Understanding” that had the appreciative audience at Steelhouse’s first seated show on its feet and the unreleased “Blood & Hot Sauce,” framed as a country “campaign song” by Costello, in full showman mode.

A few patrons, many of them clutching T-shirts and other merch, trickled out of the room during the show, likely disappointed or baffled as to why they hadn’t heard the songs played as they had expected.

But, at least for me, the show was bracingly refreshing - and often illuminating - from an artist I’ve seen at least a dozen times.

“It was somewhat surprising that Nick Lowe, who wrote “What’s So Funny…” didn’t join Costello and company for the song. After all, he and Los Straitjackets had, in his words, “warmed up” the crowd for “the boss.”

Suffice it to say the 45-minutes set by the gentleman rocker and the Mexican wrestling masked band made up of some of Lowe’s best – “Cruel to Be Kind,” “Tokyo Bay,” “I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock ‘n’ Roll)” and Straitjacket instrumentals like “The Magnificent Seven” demonstrated that, still and always, as his first English album was titled, Lowe remains the “Jesus of Cool.” "

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Re: Elvis & The Imposters with Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets, Steelhouse, Omaha, NE, June 21, 2023

Post by sweetest punch »

https://journalstar.com/life-entertainm ... f2d74.html

TOP 25 CONCERTS OF 2023

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Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe, Steelhouse Omaha.
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Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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