Sunday, November 03, 2002

Workarounds: You've Gotta Love 'Em Userland Radio doesn't provide notification of new comments, but Phillip Pearson lets you subscribe to an RSS feed of your own blog's comments. Here is a link to the comment monitor RSS generator. I've just subscribed to my own comments. Bass-ackwards but cool. 11:47:24 PM    comment []

Elvis Costello Ain't No Imposter He's more of a rocker than I knew! More engaging than I expected, too. No, last night's show by Elvis Costello and the Imposters couldn't have been better. Too bad my knowledge of his oeuvre is so limited, otherwise I'd have much more to report. Several songs were certainly from the latest album (noidonthaveityet!) while many classics -- songs I could easily name -- pleased the crowd of, yes, mostly aging boomers. An online review of Elvis's July 10th concert (from Oz?) could suffice for last night's show at the Jackie Gleason Theater, down to its description of the final (fourth!) encore: In the fourth encore, the exuberant power-pop double of "You Belong to Me" and "Pump It Up" looked like the obvious way to end the show: the room bouncing, the energy levels peaking. But a sharp right turn took us into "I Want You," the darkest and most disturbing of obsessive tales. Indeed, we left during "Pump it Up," certain that it was the closer; we had a prior engagement to get to. We learned later that the band had saved one of their best for last, but don't think we were disappointed. Perhaps I have passed up opportunities to see Costello in the past, but that won't likely happen again. Wow... I just went looking for more reviews on The Stamping Ground, and the latest review, from Chicago, reflects a vastly different experience. His friend Derek Bell of the Chieftains had just passed away, and Elvis was understandably upset, which infused the show with an edge. As in Chicago, Costello introduced "My Mood Swings" with the Big Lebowski story, but he did not play "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" here in SoBe. Almost forgot: Opener Laura Cantrell turned in a solid performance backed by a band of semi-famous players, but her sound is more country fried than I like so I don't have much to say about it. 10:11:22 PM    comment []