March 23, 1979 Gusto concert review: Elvis Costello and the Attractions at Shea's Buffalo

 

For my astrological twin Jack Dumpert’s daughter Sam (a/k/a Dawn), this was her first rock concert. Jack has a story about running into Elvis Costello the next morning.

March 23, 1979 

Elvis Costello Survives Success

          Will success spoil Elvis Costello? Well, it’ll take more than a couple weeks amongst the Top 10 albums, judging from what went down in Shea’s Buffalo Thursday night. All that acclaim has done is cloak the British singer-songwriter sensation’s harsh manners with a thin veneer of civility. And when it came to the music, there were no holds barred.

          After being bowled over by last year’s model, one savored this year’s Elvis Costello for the nuances. No longer was he quite such a stiff, anxious figure. Decked out in his black-and-white checkered “My Aim Is True” jacket, black shirt and thin pink tie, he commanded the stage with an easy sort of assurance. He even went so far as to say, “’Ow are ya! Nice to be back in Buffalo again.” Shades of showmanship.

          More true to form were his ultimatum to the jerk tossing firecrackers from the balcony (“Go get him,” Costello urged the other fans), his introduction to “Radio Radio” (a scatological swipe at Lee Abrams, the programming czar who foisted formats onto FM radio) and his encore.

          As dramatic ploys go, it was masterful. Costello and the Attractions dashed off stage after “Radio Radio,” the lights came up, the sound system started playing music to exit by and the road crew began dismantling the microphones. End of show, right? Wrong. The near sell-out crowd wasn’t leaving. After two minutes of cheering, the lights dimmed again and Costello reappeared to do “Pump It Up,” perhaps in answer to the “Pump It Up” banner hanging from the balcony.

No one had time to get tired of Costello. It was a short set, barely an hour including the two-song encore. The first half was loaded with new songs – numbers off his latest album, “Armed Forces,” and a couple tunes that haven’t appeared on his American releases. He didn’t do “Alison.” He didn’t do “Less Than Zero.” Proceedings came to a climax with an ominous “Lipstick Vogue,” all drama and darkness, and a long version of “Watching the Detectives,” which was enhanced with special lighting effects.

The music was pure energy. A band sound mix reduced it to a dense smear of drums, voice and Costello’s rhythm guitar, but that was enough to deliver it. The driving drums were particularly dominant. Costello’s vocals, meanwhile, were adept enough that he even ventured an occasional scat phrase.

Opening were the Rubinoos, four skinny kids from California who won the crowd with half an hour of righteous recreations of the bright, brash pop sound of the mid ‘60s. Starting with a cappella doo-wop, they remade the Beatles’ “Please Please Me,” the Ventures’ “Walk, Don’t Run” and Tommy James and the Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now” before guitarist Tommy Dunbar mocked out every macho blues wanker of the last decade in “Rock and Roll Is Dead (And We Don’t Care).” Unlike the Bay City Rollers, the Rubinoos don’t play cute, they play hard. Give them a couple more years and we may see Rubinoomania.

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IN THE PHOTO: Elvis Costello in Burlington, Vt., a week after the Shea’s Buffalo show.

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NOTEBOOK: The "Armed Forces" album was Elvis Costello's first venture into commercial acceptance and it was working out just fine until his old hostility reared its ugly head during this tour. He was drinking and drugging heavily. And then there was that incident a week before the Buffalo date, in which he basically screwed the pooch. He ran into Stephen Stills' band in a hotel bar March 15 in Columbus, Ohio, and got into hurling racial-tinged insults about various American artists. When it became public, it torpedoed his airplay and nearly sank his career.

            Meanwhile, the Rubinoos were a band on Berserkley Records, a label I loved in the '70s for artists like Greg Kihn and Jonathan Richman. But alas, there was no Rubinoomania. The group took a break in 1985, came back in 1999 and have endured as a cult favorite with original guitarist-vocalists Jon Rubin and Tommy Dunbar. Their website lists a date July 26 at the Abilene Bar and Lounge in Rochester.

            Here's Elvis Costello's setlist from that night in Shea's, courtesy of setlist.fm:

Waiting for the End of the World

Good Squad

Two Little Hitlers

B Movie

Oliver's Army

Green Shirt

Temptation (early version)

The Beat

Opportunity

Accidents Will Happen

This Year's Girl

Big Boys

Lipstick Vogue

Watching the Detectives

Radio Radio

(encore)

Pump It Up

You Belong to Me