Elvis Costello and the Imposters with Nick Lowe - Pearl Theater at the Palms, Saturday 6-17-23

 Since my lovely wife had never had the chance to see Nick Lowe in concert (I was lucky enough to see Rockpile back in the day, which was fantastic, of course), when she saw that he would be touring with Costello and actually playing in Vegas, she picked up tickets immediately!

We had seen Costello at the Pearl a few years back with Blondie and thought that the venue was pretty good - not overly huge with decent sound - although I do think the sound was better this time out than last time. And last time I was absolutely frozen by the a/c running full blast over my head so I was prepared this time and instead it was completely comfortable, so they wither fixed the issue or it was just a matter of where you are sitting.

Nick Lowe started exactly at the advertised 7:30 pm time with Los Straightjackets backing him up. I know that he has used them as a backing band for a number of years now, and while they are perfectly competent and their sound complimented the songs, they are certainly nothing special (I can think of many instrumental bands that I prefer right off the top of my head, both song-wise and playing-wise) and I have no idea why he uses them specifically, especially considering the top-notch musicians Lowe has played with in the past. Nick had a very short set - about 30 minutes - and let the Straightjackets play two of their own songs during that time - nice of him, but we would certainly have preferred a full set of Lowe songs, particularly since he had such a abbreviated time to play as it was. 

Opening with "So It Goes", Nick was in fine voice, playing acoustic guitar to the 'Jackets accompaniment - they also added backing vocals here'n'there - and ran through numbers like "Raging Eyes", "Without Love", "Tokyo Bay" (a nice, Rockpile-ish number), "When I Write the Book" and, of course, "Cruel to Be Kind". There's an infinite number of other songs we would have loved to hear, but alas, it was over far too quickly.

As at the Elvis/Blondie gig, there was a long change-over to allow people a break - I joked that with the older crowd like this, everyone uses the break to go to the bathroom rather than the bar - before Elvis came out with the Imposters - Steve Nieve and Pete Thomas from the Attractions along with bassist Davey Faragher augmented by Charlie Sexton on 2nd guitar. Costello was draped in a gold lame-ish jacket ala Presley and busted out "Mystery Dance" and "Radio Radio" for a powerful opening before going into a long, dull electronic/reggae  number and then Steve accompanied Elvis alone on acoustic piano for "Accidents Will Happen". Elvis picked up an acoustic guitar for "Allison" (Sexton performing the original leads that Elvis admitted he could never master) and went through a number of songs that I did not recognize and that were stretched out far too long - what happened to the angry young man new waver with the short songs?! But we got a strong ending to the set with "Watching the Detectives", "I Don't Want to Go to Chelsea" and "Pump It Up". The encore was - natch - "(What's So Funny About) Peace Love and Understanding", but Nick Lowe - the songwriter - did not join him, which I believe that everyone there must have assumed that he would and was as disappointed as we were, before ending with the gospel-tinged "Blood and Hot Sauce".

Elvis' timing was a bit off during the night - either his monitors were slightly delayed or he was having some issues himself which was a bit distracting and kept the set from being as enjoyable as it could have been. Sexton played some fine lead guitar, but wasn't a necessary addition, although Elvis seems to like to change things up, since he had backing singers last time instead of a lead guitar. This time there were backing vocals on tape, apparently, and on one tune, Costello was able to trigger a looper or something similar so that he could trade vocals with himself. The stage was barren this time out, as well - no screens like the last gig, although the Pearl does have a screen off to either side of the stage to zoom in on the action (although they were not on for Lowe). 

Of course, I wasn't expecting either to be as amazing as they were when I saw them in the 70's (jeez - 50 years ago!) but both were good, although Nick needed some extra time (we'd love to see him headline his own show) and Elvis could have cut his set a little shorter (the extended numbers were extraneous). It was a fun night out, regardless, and good to see them both still doing it after all these years!