Live Review: Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve • Park West • Chicago
Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve
Park West, Chicago, IL
Saturday, March 15, 2025
Review and live photo by Jeff Elbel, profile photo by Mark Seliger
While the streets of Chicago teemed with revelers getting an early start on St. Patrick’s Day, a full house celebrated the holiday with Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve on Saturday night. Costello and his longtime Attractions/Imposters bandmate Nieve completed a four-night run in Chicago that also concluded the pair’s spring tour. Set lists varied nightly, drawing deep cuts from all eras of Costello’s extensive catalog. During a nearly three-hour show, Costello and Nieve gave devoted fans their money’s worth while drawing deeply from 17 albums, B-sides, the musical score for 2024’s A Face in the Crowd, covers, and unreleased tracks.
There was a clutch of well-known standards, too, although familiar fare, including “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” appeared in inventive new shapes. Nieve anchored the show at his grand piano, although he drew upon other sounds as necessary. The keyboardist blew into a reedy melodica accompanied by a backdrop of electronic rhythm and bass during “Watching the Detectives” before returning to the piano to play scatting jazz lines a la Mike Garson. For his part, Costello shifted from the acoustic (and topical) opener “Deportee” to play the electric spy-guitar riff of “Watching the Detectives” on his trusty Fender Jazzmaster.
Nieve delivered “Motel Matches” with a New Orleans flair reminiscent of Allen Toussaint. Costello explained the song’s inspiration via an urban legend about the Hollywood hotel The Tropicana and the death of soul singer Sam Cooke. “We’re playing these songs in a way where maybe the story can come out a little bit more,” said Costello. “Talking in the Dark” was described as the study of a scoundrel and “the sorry tale that I hope I was never part of.”
The musical backdrop for many songs, including “Harpie’s Bizarre,” relied on Nieve’s skillful ability to shift from carnivalesque piano to classical to jazz and rock styles while Costello prowled the stage with a microphone. The result shifted the emphasis of singalong radio cuts like the samba-infused “Clubland” to focus on Costello’s wry and heady lyrical portraits.
Costello sang pop confection “Veronica” in the tumbling acoustic style of Bob Dylan. “I learned the trick of putting the capo on [my guitar] from that old folk singer Timothée Chalamet,” he said beforehand. “I’m kind of proud that we snuck that into the hit parade,” he added afterward. The song contrasted the youthful exploits and decline of an elderly loved one (Costello’s paternal grandmother) as she slipped into dementia.
Longtime fans have seen Costello play generous sets, delivering north of 30 songs while saying barely a word to the crowd. The show at Park West was made more memorable thanks to Costello’s generous stories. There were lighthearted anecdotes and moving, intimate explanations of songs. “Jimmie Standing in the Rain” had a backstory that connected to Costello’s family in the early 20th century. The recent and unreleased song “John Went Walking” picked up a later family thread, delivered as dramatic beat poetry.
The duo made a tribute and medley of bluesman Jimmy Reed’s “Take Out Some Insurance” with Bob Dylan’s “Goodbye Jimmy Reed” and Costello’s “Mystery Dance” from 1977 debut album My Aim is True.
The concert’s latter half saw Costello and Nieve welcome members of what they called “The All American-Irish Band.” Shaye Cohn’s cornet elevated songs, including “Almost Blue,” and she traded lines with violinist Eleanor Whitmore during “Hey Clockface / How Can You Face Me Now.” The pair gathered around Costello’s microphone to join him in close harmony, covering Emmylou Harris’ role during “The Scarlet Tide.”
Rousing show tune “Blood & Hot Sauce” was reminiscent of Randy Newman, with Costello briefly taking Nieve’s place at the piano. The tragic “I Do (Zula’s Song)” was a downcast tango.
Sean McKeon’s uilleann pipes created the opposing energy, making an exotic and stirring addition to many songs, including “Little Palaces,” drawn from King of America and its recently expanded reissue. Costello provided context for the song’s roots in his Irish family background, with exposure to clashes between Catholic and Protestant factions and how those influences made their way east to impact life in Liverpool. “My grandfather was not a religious man, but he did like a fight,” said Costello, drawing laughter. Despite Catholic connections, the patriarch named his daughter Lillian, drawing a parallel to the lily symbol of the Protestant group known as the Orange Order. “And that is a little bit like being called the boy named Sue in Liverpool,” Costello explained. The song segued into a rousing version of the traditional “Trim the Velvet” that had fans clapping in time with McKeon’s pipes.
Bob Dylan’s bassist Tony Garnier played evocative countermelody on the melancholy “That Blue Look,” described by Costello as “a new song about an old story” of romantic misfire and missed chances. Garnier alternated between percussive punctuation and bowed legato lines for the story of a jilted paramour at the carnival during “The Comedians.” Garnier’s walking bass line danced with Nieve’s sparkling piano on the uptempo “Sulphur to Sugarcane.”
No longtime fan wants to call attention to the following point, but an honest reporter has to say so: At 70, Costello doesn’t possess the same control of his singing voice that he did as a younger performer or before his 2018 health issues. The Park West audience did not experience a perfect vocal performance. Nonetheless, Costello still sounds inimitably like himself. His deep well of pop and jazz allows him to bend lines and phrases, not unlike Van Morrison or Leonard Cohen. Costello did sing with singular expression and range on highlights, including the Burt Bacharach collaboration “I Still Have That Other Girl” and a spine-tingling “Deep Dark Truthful Mirror” from the 1989 album Spike.
Two dozen songs into the generous set, Costello promised one more song and then delivered another half-dozen. The first was a special dusting-off of “Mischievous Ghost” for Monday’s holiday, accompanied by stories about characters encountered at the local watering hole. After having referred to the partygoers outside as “amateur drinkers,” Costello quipped that he’d had his season with booze. “There was one time when I was trying to rid the world of alcohol by drinking it,” he said.
Soon came pop evergreen “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” (with Nieve taking a verse on vocal) and the deceptively gorgeous song of unhappy endings “Alison.” The show continued with the aching beauty of “Isabelle in Tears” from 2018’s Look Now before making a fitting finish for St. Patrick’s Day via Costello’s collaboration with the Chieftains, “Long Journey Home.” With its chorus of “red, white, and blue/green, white, and gold,” Costello said that Paddy Moloney had imagined it as “the national anthem for the Irish in America.”
Those who might have been more interested in a show full of popular singles can take heart. “I know there’s a lot of songs that you might want to hear, possibly even now,” Costello acknowledged as the lengthy set wound down. The singer promised a return with the Imposters in the fall, with an “early songs tour” full of the old favorites.
Category: Featured, Live Reviews, Weekly
