Complete Boca Raton Set List (2/21/04)

[Sgt. Rutter]

I know Mario already posted the list, but it's missing just a couple of songs, so if you please, I now take you to The Mouth Of The Rat:

Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve
Mizner Park, Boca Raton, FL
February 21, 2004

Accidents Will Happen
45
Everyday I Write The Book
(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
The Long Honeymoon
This House Is Empty Now
Someone Took The Words Away
Shot With His Own Gun (I left it off the first time ... oops!)
Green Shirt
Brilliant Mistake
Suit Of Lights
All The Rage
A Man Out Of Time
All This Useless Beauty
God's Comic (brilliantly interupted by several rants: Dick Cheney: said he saw him going into an all-you-can-eat buffet in Tampa and that he hoped he didn't f***ing die because then who'd be running the country? There was more, but I'll leave it at that; CMA rant: CMA's are where they wear cowboy hats so you know they're country musicians; Toby Keith rant: waste of a f***ing monkey to evolve into something like that ... classic! I bet he won't do either of those rants in Nashville ... or will he? Someone please let us know.)
(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love & Understanding

ENCORE 1:
Either Side Of The Same Town
When It Sings
Still
Deep Dark Truthful Mirror/You Really Got A Hold On Me
Watching The Detectives
Alison/Suspicious Minds

ENCORE 2:
Scarlet Tide
Pump It Up
Dark End Of The Street

The show started a little after 8:00 and ended a little after 10:00; all-in-all a very satisfying two hours!

Besides the comments already mentioned, two more of my favorites were when EC nailed Palm Beach with his hilarious description of "plastic women and geriatric gangsters." Then, towards the end of the show he brought out a Gibson Super 400 and described it as the guitar the other Elvis used in his '68 comeback special. Then he clarified the statement explaining it wasn't the same guitar, but a facsimile ... just like most of rock and roll these days. EC is THE MAN!

Finally, I don't know if anyone knows for sure, but whose version of "Dark End Of The Street" do you think inspired EC's cover? He and Steve's rendition had a bit of a twang, so I'm thinking it's The Flying Burrito Brothers ... or maybe Richard Thompson? I always liked the Linda Ronstadt version, but I can't imagine Elvis using her for inspiration and certainly not the Lee Hazelwood & Ann Margret version (yuk). Just wondering....

Pardon my ignorance, but has Elvis recorded it or "Either Side Of The Same Town?" If so, where?

Great forum. I just discovered it yesterday before heading to the show. Thanks for the space.

GR

[BlueChair]

I'm sure Elvis was mostly inspired by the original version of "Dark End Of The Street", by James Carr.

"Either Side Of The Same Town" has never been recorded by Elvis. He co-wrote the song with Jerry Ragovoy for inclusion on Howard Tate's most recent album Rediscovered

Thanks for your post Sgt. Rutter. Hope you'll post more in the future.

[Sgt. Rutter]

Of course he'd opt for the original ... should have figured as much. Thanks for the info on that and Howard Tate. I'll have to track that down.

Ta!

[Toy Soldier-Scaremonger]

Now there's a name: Sgt. Rutter! Thanks for postin' the setlist. I am absolutely shocked that he performed only three songs off NORTH last night. Considering that it is such a beautiful album and one that he's touring in support of, he should be doing much more of it wouldn't all of you agree? Following the setlists of the European dates last fall I think that at most shows he did the entire album. I've seen him perform every other tune in the setlist live before except for 'Scarlet'. It's the NORTH tour: play NORTH Elvis!

[johnfoyle]

From: "Rozy Stevens" writes -

To: COSTELLO-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM




Just back from Clearwater, Tampa, and Boca Raton. Nice break from
Chicago's winter, but the humidity is already unbearable down there. The
only other list member Mary and I ran into was Mario--the rest of you
lurkers must have been in disguise... Steve G--we missed you!
Three great shows, but I have to admit I liked Tampa more than the
others because of the set list. A gorgeous THIEN in Tampa, probably the
best I've ever heard. If he was sick, you certainly couldn't tell by his
voice. Steve played quite beautifully on Long Honeymoon that night, and
the ukulele made an appearance for Scarlet Tide--EC had played ST on
piano on Thur night. Steve sang backing vocals on Red Shoes at
Saturday's show.
His comments about Bush and Cheney during God's Comic grew more intense
each evening, to the point where several people seated around me
Saturday actually got up and left the show. He must know that Dubya's bro is
guv, wouldn't ya think?
New guitar for those keeping track--a Gibson Super 400, like the one
the other Elvis played on the '67 comeback special. IIRC, he used it on
PIU and Dark End of the Street.
Best moments for me were Sleep of the Just, No Wonder, and Home Truth.
Certainly hope he continues to dig deeper into the songbook as the tour
progresses.
Songs on the set lists that he didn't play included This is Hell, CCIU,
I Still Have That Other Girl, Tart, Little Triggers, and Love Field.
Rozy (who agrees with Mario that, indeed, he is a *very* lucky guy!!)

[laughingcrow]

I like the fact that people walked out....how patriotic can you be? Especially if you've paid $30odd dollars!

Do you think they went home and built a pyre of all their EC records?

[verbal gymnastics]

I like the fact that people walked out....how patriotic can you be? Especially if you've paid $30odd dollars!

Yeah - you could imagine audiences over here walking out if he ranted about Tony Blair!

[johnfoyle]

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/ ... 700f6.html


Elvis Costello shows range, intensity

By Charles Passy, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 23, 2004



BOCA RATON -- Near the end of his two-hour performance
at the Mizner Park Amphitheatre on Saturday night,
Elvis Costello made a joke about his conscious lack of
glitz. An "expensive show," he noted, might have
offered more bells and whistles. "Like Cher," he
added.

Well, we've had our share of Cher. But after watching
the nerdish singer-songwriter work his way through one
of the best catalogs of tunes in the last three
decades, we still want more of Costello.

It's not merely that the music matters so much, though
it does. It's that Costello elevates it with his
distinctive, proudly declarative voice. There's an
emotional intensity to his style that most performers
can only approximate. He turns songs into soliloquies
-- at turns pointed and droll -- but he does it
without calling undue attention to his artistry. He's
too busy being a rocker to worry about being the Voice
of a Generation.

You could tell as much from the start of the show,
when Costello, dressed sharply in a black suit and
black shirt, delivered some of his older, more popular
tunes -- Accidents Will Happen, Everyday I Write the
Book -- in rapid-fire succession. Working in
comfortable partnership with his longtime keyboardist
Steve Nieve, Costello played up the fleet, nervous
quality of his early style, blending punk attitude
with rockabilly restlessness.

As the plentiful but often disrespectful crowd settled
down -- that is, when they still weren't busy
yammering into their cellphones -- Costello switched
gears and went into more of a crooner mode.

Such songs as Shot With His Own Gun and Long Honeymoon
were served up like mini-operas, flavored extra dry.
By the time Costello got around to material from his
latest, jazz-inflected album, North, he proved himself
the quintessential low-fi showman. Add to the mix a
few of his deftly comic remarks -- something about the
evolutionary chain from monkey to man and country star
Toby Keith's place in it -- and it became clear Elvis
wasn't leaving the building anytime soon. He was
having too much smart fun.

Still, Costello never strays too far from a good
rocking groove. By the end of the night, he brought
out a replica of a guitar belonging to that other
musical Elvis -- a Gibson with the right degree of
fuzz -- and played the heck out of Pump It Up, another
old favorite. He explained that the instrument was
merely a "facsimile," like "everything else in rock
'n' roll now."

But Costello, he's an original -- in every sense of
the word.

charles_passy@pbpost.com

[Sgt. Rutter]

I left a song off my list! "Shot With His Own Gun," one I was particularly looking forward to, should be added before "Green Shirt" I believe.

Thanks for all the nice posts. I feel so welcome ....

[spooky girlfriend]

Thanks for posting the list and welcome, Sgt.

I hope to have a thorough list to post myself on Wednesday morning.

[Sgt. Rutter]

Yes, very jealous about that. Besides the set list, please let us know what he rants about.

Thanks ... and have enjoy!

[spooky girlfriend]

Well, I've not been inside the Ryman since I was four, but Pip says my 4th row seats should be close enough to catch his spit when he sings.

[Sgt. Rutter]

As to whether EC should be playing more songs off North since it's the North Tour ... I don't know that I completely agree with that. Three songs were plenty enough for me. It is a beautiful album, but a bit much to take all at once, at least for me.

EC is pretty savvy and knows what his audience is into every night and I think he gave us what we could handle. I think new and unfamiliar songs, especially mellow ones like on North, tend to invite restlessness in an audience ... and it's much worse in an amphitheater setting like Boca.

The set seemed structured so that there'd only be a couple really quiet ones back-to-back and before he lost the audience, he'd bring them back with something more familiar or up tempo to stop their minds from wandering. I thought the set flowed very nicely.

Back to North, even though it's a piano/vocal based album, maybe they don't do more from it because some songs wouldn't work as well in that kind of live setting, just the two of them ... or maybe his voice can't handle more than a couple a night (he really sings his butt off on this album) ... or maybe they haven't had a chance to rehearse more than the few they're doing? I've heard that reason from other artists before; they don't do certain songs because they just haven't worked them up yet.

I don't know. What do you guys think?[/i]

[Sgt. Rutter]

Catch his spit when he sings, huh? Yeah, no ... I'll pass, thank you very much. But hey, knock yourself out!

[spooky girlfriend]

I think it's all part of Elvis's statements in the past saying that he "doesn't like to stay in one neighborhood too long (musically)." I think he knows that North was sort of a different musical direction for him and that his fans still want a balance of his songs.

For instance, some of his gigs are with the Imposters, some are just with Steve, and the three this week with Steve and the Brodskys. He just jumps around and I think he does the same with his setlist. And if you go back and read the journal that Steve is posting to now, you'll see that Elvis goes with gut feelings during the show as to what to sing, even if it means ignoring the original setlist. If the audience is responding well to the North songs then maybe he slips more in. If not, then he does other songs.

It's a dark world inside the head of Elvis though, so I'm not going to try to figure out any more.

Oh, and I don't necessarily want to catch his spit, I think that was just a remark about how close the seats were.

[Poppet]

elvis spit? oh, that's just icky. way icky.


have fun spooky.

[oily slick]

it is not so much spit as spray. you want spray. if there's blackberry bushes agrowin', it's good land; if elvis is asprayin', it's a good show!

[spooky girlfriend]

Yeah, just so long as it's not like a Gallagher show where the first few rows of people are covered with those plastic tarps.

[Sgt. Rutter]

You'll be fine. It's Elvis Costello, not Iggy Pop or John Lydon!

[bobster]

I like the fact that people walked out....how patriotic can you be? Especially if you've paid $30odd dollars!

Yeah - you could imagine audiences over here walking out if he ranted about Tony Blair!

Well, you've got account for regional differences -- at the upcoming UCLA show (in the heart of "limousine liberal" West L.A., and at a major university no less) there'd probably be walkouts if he said anything GOOD about any member of the Bush Administration, with the possible exception of Colin Powell, which were merely cause rumbling.

And, Sgt Rutter, welcome aboard, but don't mess with Lee Hazelwood -- a demented pop genius if ever there was one! (Well, haven't heard the Ann Margaret record, but, hey, I know she could dance!)