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SARATOGA SPRINGS — It was 17 years ago that Elvis Costello played his first American gig, at a club on the fringes of San Francisco's Financial District. Short and bespectacled, he wasn't nicknamed "the Little Demon" for nothing. He glowered at an adoring audience of ex-hippies and budding punkers as if they had just relieved themselves on his stage.
His set was fast and workmanlike, and at its conclusion he bolted from the room. Forget about an encore, as more than one concert-goer quipped, "Elvis has left the building."
It was an older, slightly broader and far more affable Costello who performed Sunday at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center at the inaugural event of the 1993 Special Events series.
Not that anyone would mistake him for Jimmy Buffett. Thanks to his timely reunion with his original backing trio, the Attractions, his two-hour show still had more fire and brimstone than a Jimmy Swaggart sermon.
Early on, he mixed older songs like "The Beat," "Beyond Belief' and "New Lace Sleeves" with efforts from his most recent Warners Brothers disc, Brutal Youth. "Clown Strike" was a breezy bit of surrealism; "You Tripped at Every Step," a haunting love song with Beatlish overtones; "Pony Street," another in his string of strong album openers, in the tradition of "Clubland" and "Accidents Will Happen."
The Attractions — keyboardist Steve Nieve, bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas — lived up to their billing as the finest band to emerge from the punk rock era, with inventive arrangements that left no time for their leader to wander. Costello responded in kind, slashing at his electric guitar with gleeful abandon, and frequently with an impressive degree of facility.
His hasty exit following "Rocking Horse Road," and the premature brightening of the amphitheater lights, had many fans wondering if the taciturn terror of the late '70s had not returned. He extinguished that fear with a three-encore finale that left few fans clamoring for more.
Encore No. 1 featured "Veronica," "You Belong To Me" (with echoes of the Who's "My Generation," and the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time") and "Watching the Detectives" (marred by Nieve's intrusive keyboard work). After a bracing rendition of another new song, "13 Steps Lead Down," Costello and company neatly segue into "Radio, Radio."
The hits kept coming in encore No. 2. The Attractions' propulsive playing on "Lipstick Traces" inspired a smattering of punk diehards to "pogo," although most dancers favored a modified Deadhead stomp. Costello reached further into his vast catalog for "Less Than Zero," his scathing chronicle of the resurgence of British fascism in the mid-'70s.
During his final return to the stage he performed "Alison," for many his finest song, nearly 20 years after it was first released.
After a sedate medley of Smokey Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears" and "Tears of a Clown," and a pile-drivin' "Pump It Up," the houselights were turned on for good, and it's unlikely that any in the court of this "King" felt cheated.
A significant number of the 6,000 who endured Sunday's sodden weather did so for the opening act, Crash Test Dummies.
With a hit album, God Shuffled His Feet, and the uniformly-titled single "Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm," this Canadian sextet enjoyed the rare opportunity for any opening act, to play for the already converted.
Well, mostly for the converted. Why this overrated ensemble is appearing anywhere other than cutout bins is beyond me.
They're not without talent, although the inaudible diddles and wheezes of mandolin and harmonica player Benjamin Darvill were wholly extraneous to the group's sound.
Lead singer Brad Roberts was especially grating during the group's 50-minute set, mocking rock star pretension during his guitar solos, while compensating with little more than his insufferably precocious personality. As the late Frank Zappa once barked, "just shut up and play."
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