Newspaper Correspondant Getis it Wrong Again

[AlmostBlue]

McCartney Collaboration "Clings Like Ivy"?

Review of concert from 2004-04-30: Bournemouth, Bournemouth International Centre - with Steve Nieve
Bournemouth Daily Echo, 2004-05-03
- Nick Churchill

Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve, Windsor Hall, BIC
by Nick Churchill

HE DID IT HIS WAY: Elvis Costello

IT'S all a very long way from the Village Bowl in 1978 when Elvis Costello lead a packed house of sweat-drenched punks in a chorus against the one pitiful soul who dared spit at the bespectacled one.

These days the specs remain, but there's only the odd hint of that early bile even though Friday's show opened with the line: "I wish I didn't hate you half as much as I do."

But it was a subdued affair. Anyone expecting Oliver's Army and I Don't Want To Go To Chelsea was in the wrong place. This was Elvis' show, played the way he wanted it, at the pace he wanted (90 minutes, no interval, no support) and in the order he wanted. New Amsterdam segued into The Beatles' You've Got To Hide Your Love Away; a neo-dub version of Inch By Inch gave way to Fever. Almost Blue was taken straight, no rocks, Good Year For the Roses sounded larger than his hit single, while Watching the Detectives had all the same ingredients but tasted like a whole new dish. Shipbuilding brought the house down.

Indoor Fireworks got a rare run-out, as did the gutsy 45 and the McCartney collaboration Nothing Clings Like Ivy.

But the best was left to the very end - and it wasn't even his song. Costello's lifelong love affair with southern soul found him summoning every ounce of feeling for that most telling and tender tale of stolen love, Dark End of the Street. The song was Dan Penn's, the original belonged to Percy Sledge. This version was pure Costello playing keeper of the flame; the tears were my own.

None of Costello's contemporaries can hold a flame to his skill and the fact he's still up there taking chances at his own expense is to be applauded long and loud. Luckily, nobody spat!

[johnfoyle]

See this in other Bournemouth thread here -


After speculation about this

Quote:
`Indoor Fireworks got a rare run-out, as did the gutsy 45 and the McCartney collaboration Nothing Clings Like Ivy.`

in the Bournemouth `paper review I e-mailed the reviewer and asked him about it ; he replied-

John
Thanx for your unexpected e-mail.
It seems the attachment of McCartney's name to Nothing Clings Like Ivy was a bad slip on the sub editor's keyboard when the review was being placed. Frustrating indeed.
Seems somebody has inherited EC's old Little Hands of Concrete moniker!
All the best
Nick