Concert Review: Elvis Costello solo at the O’Shaughnessy Auditorium

Elvis Costello

On Monday night Elvis Costello rocked the roof off of the O’Shaughnessy Auditorium in Saint Paul all by himself. Playing the opening gig of a solo tour, Costello played 29 songs during a more than two hour show. The audience was in the palm of his hand from the very beginning. Costello exited the stage after about 70 minutes, and I was a little worried he wasn’t going to come back, but my fears proved to be unfounded as he sang 13 more songs. But because of that early tease, Costello got a lot of standing ovations-there were definitely some times when I thought to myself, “Well, that might have been the last song, I should stand up, cause he deserves a standing ovation.” And then Elvis would come back for another song. 

I’ve seen Elvis Costello in concert once before, with the Imposters on his Spectacular Spinning Songbook tour in 2011. That was an incredible show, but I was very excited to see him solo. He didn’t disappoint. He played 5 or 6 different guitars, and the keyboards on a couple of songs. And he did three whistling solos. The songs covered the entire run of Costello’s career, from an early version of “Radio, Radio,” then called “Radio Soul,” to “The Last Year of My Youth,” which he wrote the night before he performed it on David Letterman’s show last week. This concert also highlighted the amazing variety of songs that Costello has written, from punky rockers like “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” and “King Horse” to the lovely jazz ballad “I’m in the Mood Again,” and “For the Stars,” which he wrote for opera singer Anne Sofie von Otter. Very few, if any, rock songwriters can match his career for its diversity and its continued brilliance. 

Costello was in excellent voice throughout the show, and I think his voice has improved with age. His voice is still powerful, and he showed it off by sometimes going off-mike at the end of songs. Of course, his distinctive vocals could still be heard throughout the hall. 

Some highlights of the first half of the concert included the lovely “Veronica,” which he co-wrote with Paul McCartney, a mash-up of “New Amsterdam” and “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” a charming cover of “Walking My Baby Back Home,” a beautiful rendition of “Beyond Belief,” which is one of my very favorite Elvis Costello songs, and performing a duet with himself on guitar loops on “Watching the Detectives.” Costello sang a nice version of “Everyday I Write the Book,” which he prefaced by saying, “I wrote this song in 10 minutes. It was a hit, so I felt guilty. But not that big of a hit, so I didn’t feel that guilty.” 

The extended encore held many musical treats, such as a lovely keyboard version of “Almost Blue,” and the aforementioned “Radio Soul.” Elvis also sang a heartfelt rendition of “Alison,” followed by “A Slow Drag with Josephine,” and “Jimmie Standing in the Rain,” two of my favorite songs from his 2010 album “National Ransom.” “Jimmie Standing in the Rain” ended dramatically with Elvis moving off-mike to sing a verse of “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” He also tore it up on a vicious version of “I Want You,” on which he played some wicked guitar. He left the stage, but returned for the final encores of the night, starting with the haunting “Shipbuilding,” performed on the keyboard. Costello then switched to guitar for the inevitable version of Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?” Then it was back to the keyboards for a beautiful reading of “I’m in the Mood Again,” from 2003’s underrated “North” album, and “For the Stars,” which Costello introduced as one of the few songs he’s written about songwriting. He closed the show with “Red Shoes.” 

Costello told stories during the concert about his father, who was a musician, and his grandfather, who was also a musician who had played on ships on the White Star Line. He said that his grandfather was part of the inspiration for the song “Jimmie Standing in the Rain,” which tells the tale of a Jimmie Rodgers impersonator touring England in the 1930’s. 

It was an outstanding concert, you could tell that the crowd just adored Elvis and would have stayed all night. Elvis really seemed to feed off of the crowd’s energy and looked to be having a great time. My wife said to me after the show, “He’s like Shakespeare, it takes me a while to understand what he’s saying, but the more I listen the more I get it.” I thought that was a great comparison, it does take a while to get into Costello’s world. But once you’re there, it’s a fabulous world to be in. After the show, we ran into some friends who have met Elvis before by waiting at the stage door. It was a beautiful night, so we waited for a while and chatted, and lo and behold, Elvis himself soon appeared. He was generous with his limited time, shaking hands, posing for pictures, and signing autographs. I wasn’t able to get close enough to get a picture, but I did get a handshake as he was walking towards his bus. And I learned that he’s left-handed! I knew there was a reason I liked him so much!

Mix CD, "The Best of Paul Weller: The Solo Years-Volume 2"

Paul Weller, looking dapper as usual.

Paul Weller crushing it on stage.

I compiled a “Best of Paul Weller: The Solo Years” mix CD back in January, and Weller has so many great songs from his solo albums that I had to make it a two-disc set. The songs on this CD are still very good; they just didn’t quite make the cut for the first disc. Since Paul Weller just issued “More Modern Classics,” a new greatest hits compilation that covers the years 1999 to the present, I thought now would be a good time to post my own compilation.

Here are the tracks that I put on “The Best of Paul Weller: The Solo Years, Volume 2.”

1. Clues

2. Sunflower

3. Foot of the Mountain

4. Stanley Road

5. Time Passes

6. Pink on White Walls

7. A Year Late

8. Going Places

9. Who Brings Joy

10. Now the Night Is Here

11. One X One

12. Illumination

13. Push Button, Automatic

14. Paper Smile

15. Wishing on a Star

16. One Bright Star

17. Have You Made Up Your Mind

18. Black River

19. Moonshine

20. No Tears to Cry

21. The Piper

Here are some comments about the songs:

“Clues,” from “Paul Weller,” 1992: A jazzy song from Weller’s first solo album, featuring a flute solo. The song starts with Weller crooning, “I’ll meet you on a bus at dawn/an open-topped one if it’s warm.”

“Sunflower,” from “Wild Wood,” 1993: A funky song, with some great guitar work. I love the sound of the drums on this song.

“Foot of the Mountain,” from “Wild Wood,” 1993: A lovely acoustic song, performed by Paul solo with guitar. 

“Stanley Road,” from “Stanley Road,” 1995: The driving title track from one of Weller’s best albums, with pounding piano, the lyrics deal with Weller’s childhood memories of the neighborhood he grew up in.

“Time Passes,” from “Stanley Road,” 1995: A beautiful ballad. It’s a tender song about meeting an ex-girlfriend on the street. One of my favorite Weller ballads. 

“Pink on White Walls,” from “Stanley Road,” 1995: A jaunty, delightful, Alan Price-like number.

“A Year Late,” bonus track on “Stanley Road,” 1995: This song has a hypnotic melody and strings backing Weller’s guitar. It’s a song about unrequited love, as Weller sings, “Is it true, what I feel for you/wish I could help it through/so you could feel it too.” “A Year Late” really should have been on the “Stanley Road” album. 

“Going Places,” from “Illumination,” 2002: The kind of bright, summery song that Weller can seemingly turn out at will. 

“Who Brings Joy,” from “Illumination,” 2002: A gentle song that shares a lyrical theme with the Nat King Cole song “Nature Boy.” Weller sings, “And all you ask/in return/is to be loved/and love you I must,” which echoes “The greatest thing/you will ever learn/is just to love/and be loved in return” from “Nature Boy.” 

“Now the Night is Here,” from “Illumination,” 2002: Another excellent Weller tune about falling in love, as he sings, “Let’s you and I blow gently on/the embers of today/now the night is here to tell us/to be in love.” I’m betting that this song worked it’s magic on females Weller sang it to.

“One X One,” from “Illumination,” 2002: Very catchy song, I love the lyrics “Like electric lights in a ballroom scene/going on one times one.” 

“Illumination,” from “Illumination,” 2002: Yes, another song from “Illumination,” Weller’s excellent 2002 album. But the guy just keeps writings catchy songs with great melodies and good lyrics! A great guitar pattern gives this song it’s hook. I love the way Weller lightly sings “cha” as the guitar riff plays-it just sounds so perfect. 

“Push Button, Automatic,” bonus track on “Illumination,” 2002: Weller enters Kinks territory here, as he channels Ray Davies in writing a song about a guy who starts spending all of his time online. Weller sings, “Just a push button, automatic kind of guy/looking at the liquid crystal night after night/chat room hard core looking to find/my wrists are aching on screen I’m faking.” It’s a very funny song, and one that’s even more relevant now in 2014 than it was in 2002. 

“Paper Smile,” from “As Is Now,” 2005: “What’s in a life/if you don’t live it?” Weller asks in this rocker, from his superb album “As Is Now.” 

“Wishing on a Star,” from the live album “Catch-Flame!” 2006: This is the only cover I included on the 2 discs. It’s a gorgeous cover of a 1978 song from the R&B group Rose Royce. Weller gives the song a soulful reading, and it’s a good fit for his style. Features excellent guitar work from Steve Cradock. 

“One Bright Star,” from “22 Dreams,” 2008: Continuing the “star” theme, this is a Spanish-tinged song from “22 Dreams.” 

“Have You Made Up Your Mind,” from “22 Dreams,” 2008: A catchy, funky tune that finds Weller pining after a girl. “There’s a love light breaking through the dawn/but where will I be when morning comes?” 

“Black River,” from “22 Dreams,” 2008: Tuneful song with nice lyrics, as Weller sings, “The story’s still unfolding and like the river rolling/it’s always moving like the tide/seemingly unchanging/but of course nothing stays the same you’ll see.” 

“Moonshine,” from “Wake Up the Nation,” 2010: A rollicking song from Weller’s aggressive album “Wake Up the Nation.” A pounding piano accompanies Weller as he spews out lyrics about being “A bag of nerves/I seem to suppress.” 

“No Tears to Cry,” from “Wake Up the Nation,” 2010: I like “Wake Up the Nation” a lot, but I feel that it’s songs go very well together, so it’s difficult for me to pick songs off the album for a compilation. This is a soul-influenced tune with a nice groove. 

“The Piper,” bonus track on “Sonik Kicks,” 2012: This is a throwback to 1960’s soul, with a very funky bass line. The lyrics are very 60’s too, as Weller sings, “On the promise of tomorrow I was swept along.” It’s a lovely song, and a very nice way to finish off the CD.

Movie Review: Two Weeks in Another Town starring Kirk Douglas (1962)

Movie poster for Two Weeks in Another Town, 1962. If only the movie was as cool as this poster.

Kirk Douglas and Cyd Charisse in Two Weeks in Another Town, 1962.

Irwin Shaw, author of the novel Two Weeks in Another Town.

Two Weeks in Another Town was the third movie to pair actor Kirk Douglas with director Vincente Minnelli and producer John Houseman. Unfortunately, it is also the worst of the three movies. Admittedly, the completion is steep, since the first two were The Bad and the Beautiful, and Lust for Life, both of which feature Oscar-nominated performances from Douglas. Two Weeks in Another Town, released in 1962, was based on Irwin Shaw’s 1960 novel of the same name. The novel is about a former actor who rejoins the movie world at the behest of a director for whom he did his best acting work. Shaw, a successful playwright, short-story writer, novelist, and screenwriter, knew a lot about Hollywood and those who inhabited it, so he was well-qualified to write such a book. I’m a big fan of Shaw’s writing, but Two Weeks in Another Town pales in comparison to his great works, like the novel The Young Lions, or his short stories. Too many years have passed since I read Two Weeks in Another Town for me to give it a full review, but some of the shortcomings of the novel also become shortcomings of the film. It’s a flawed book and also a flawed movie. 

Kirk Douglas plays the lead role of former actor Jack Andrus. In the book, Andrus has moved to France and stopped acting because of an accident that damaged his face. In the movie, Douglas has an inconsistent scar on the side of his face, but the reason he hasn’t acted in years is because of a nervous breakdown. He’s been playing shuffleboard at a mental hospital. Andrus gets a telegram from Maurice Kruger, played by Edward G. Robinson, asking him to come to Rome and take a small part in a film. Kruger is an alcoholic, skirt-chasing director for whom Andrus made several of his most famous movies. In a clever in-joke, when Kruger shows an old movie that he and Andrus made together, we see clips from The Bad and the Beautiful. So Andrus, against his better judgment, goes to Rome. When he gets to Rome, everyone is an asshole to him. And overacts terribly. From Kruger and his harpy of a wife to the moody leading man, played by a young George Hamilton, (before he got his tan) to Andrus’s ex-wife, crazily played by Cyd Charisse, everyone is out to get Jack Andrus. Andrus might not be the most likable guy, but you end up rooting for him just because everyone else is so nasty to him. Kirk Douglas does the best he can with the part, and he looks super handsome in his early 1960’s suits and tuxedo, but he can’t carry the picture all by himself. And while Douglas was no stranger to chewing the scenery, everyone else’s acting is so histrionic and over the top that they seem to be making a totally different movie than the one Douglas is acting in. 

Part of the problem with both the novel and the movie is that there’s no dramatic tension. Will Andrus be able to successfully oversee the dubbing of the dialogue to Kruger’s movie? We don’t really care, because the stakes feel so low. Andrus doesn’t care about getting back into the movie business, so we’re not really invested in whether Kruger’s movie comes in under budget or not. 

Thankfully, Irwin Shaw didn’t have anything to do with the writing of the screenplay, because there are some super klunky lines. My favorite might have been Edward G. Robinson saying to Kirk Douglas, “You and I made some good ones, yes, and a couple of great ones. Looked like there was a federal law prohibiting us from doing anything wrong.” Oof. Another winner is Robinson saying “All women are just pure monster.” Lots of subtlety there.

In his autobiography The Ragman’s Son, Kirk Douglas tells us part of the reason why Two Weeks didn’t work. As Two Weeks entered post-production, a new studio head took over MGM, Joseph Vogel. Vogel decided that MGM would only make family pictures. “He decided that the film would be edited differently-he was determined to make a family picture out of what we had shot….When I saw them emasculate the film, I wrote to Vogel, even though I was just an actor in it. I implored him, argued with him, told him that if he had wanted to make a family picture, he never should have made Two Weeks in Another Town.” (The Ragman’s Son, by Kirk Douglas, p.315) I don’t know if keeping the more explicit footage would have helped the movie, but it sure couldn’t have hurt. 

For me the best part of the movie was when it finally spilled over into full-blown camp at the climax of the movie, as Douglas and Cyd Charisse wail at the top of their lungs as Douglas drunkenly drives his convertible at high speeds.  Of course, it’s all done with rear projection shots, which just makes the whole scene even more ridiculous. 

If you’re a fan of ridiculous old movies about the making of old movies, then Two Weeks in Another Town might be just the movie for you. I’d advise everyone else to stay away.

Movie Review: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas (1957)

Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, 1957.

A more animated publicity still from Gunfight. The expression on Kirk's face is great.

1957’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, was the second movie that Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas made together. The first was 1948’s I Walk Alone, a tough, gritty, film noir. I Walk Alone was an early film for both actors, as it was Douglas’s fourth movie, and Lancaster’s fifth. Neither was a major star. But by the time Gunfight was released in May, 1957, they were both at the peak of their stardom. 

Gunfight told the story of lawman Wyatt Earp and dentist/gunfighter Doc Holliday, two unlikely friends who joined forces at the O.K. Corral to face members of the Clanton gang in a deadly shootout. Of course, the film takes liberties with historical fact, but that’s to be expected. The point of the movie is not historical accuracy, but the relationship that develops between Earp and Holliday. Casting Lancaster and Douglas in the two lead roles ensured that the film would be a hit. Separately, Douglas and Lancaster had become two of the most successful actors to emerge after World War II, and together their scenes had a lot of chemistry. While their on-screen personas generally had some similarities, as they both tended towards extroverted, athletic, and showy roles, in Gunfight they play opposites. Lancaster as Earp is the by-the-book do-gooder, all stern business and seriousness. Lancaster was good at playing these kinds of parts, and he has an inner confidence as Earp that makes you understand why Holliday trusts him. Lancaster uses only about a tenth of his charisma to play Earp, and we don’t see much of his famous smile-which Lancaster called “the Grin.” Lancaster originally didn’t want to play the part of Wyatt Earp. But he still owed producer Hal Wallis two movies, and he did Gunfight on the condition that he could play the lead in Wallis’s production of The Rainmaker. Wallis had signed both Douglas and Lancaster when they were young actors. Douglas as Holliday gets the chance to sink his teeth into a great, flamboyant part-a drunken gambler who is dying of consumption and has an annoying prostitute girlfriend. Douglas is all flash and arrogance as Holliday, which suits the part perfectly. 

The script, written by Leon Uris, just before he hit it big as a novelist with Exodus, deliberately highlights the bromance between Earp and Holliday. Their relationship is much more well-defined than Earp’s romance with female gambler Laura Denbow, played by Rhonda Fleming. Despite playing the third wheel to Douglas and Lancaster, Fleming enjoyed working with Lancaster a great deal. She said, “He was like an old-world gentleman. He had a quality of class about him that I noticed immediately, because you don’t work with many men who have that quality.” (Against Type: The Biography of Burt Lancaster, by Gary Fishgall, p.149) Douglas had a somewhat more difficult relationship with his leading lady, Jo Van Fleet, who played Kate, Doc Holliday’s prostitute girlfriend. According to Douglas, Van Fleet liked to be charged up before a scene, so she would ask Douglas to slap her before filming started. Douglas was incredulous, but warily complied. (The Ragman’s Son, by Kirk Douglas, p.245) 

It was on the set of Gunfight that Douglas and Lancaster became good friends. Lancaster said, “We were really with each other night and day. We would sit up until one or two o’clock in the morning in this little hotel in Tucson, Arizona, talking about our lives, our hopes, and our dreams. And Hal Wallis would always ask, ‘What do you guys find to talk about?’ The theory that we used to have is that we spent so much time together because neither of us wanted to talk to Hal Wallis.” (Fishgall, p.148) Douglas tells much the same story in his autobiography, writing: “After the day’s shooting in Tucson, and dinner at the hotel, we would just sit around and talk. Almost every night, we talked for hours. Sometimes it would one-thirty or two in the morning before we said, ‘Hey, we’d better get to bed. We’ve got to get up and shoot tomorrow.’” (Douglas, p.245-6) 

Both Douglas and Lancaster knew that the relationship between the two of them was the key to the movie.  Douglas wrote: “The success of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral really depended on the love between the two men, which has been the most important theme in many movies-starring Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Robert Redford and Paul Newman.” (Douglas, p.246) Lancaster told Douglas, “We’re in love with each other and we don’t know how to express ourselves that way-we just kind of look at each other and grunt and don’t say very much, but you know we love each other.” (Fishgall, p.148) 

Lancaster described his working relationship with Douglas, saying, “We have a lot of controversy and conflict when we work, because he’s very much like me. He’s conceited-he’s opinionated. He tries to tell me how to act. I try to tell him how to act. And it goes this way. And strangely enough out of this kind of feuding and fighting and fussing has come a great respect and mutual love that we’ve gained.” (Fishgall, p.148) Director John Sturges had his hands full with his two stars, who were not shy about making their own suggestions on the set. Sturges, most famous for The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, seems to have gotten along well with both actors, as he worked with both of them again, later directing Douglas in 1959’s excellent Last Train From Gun Hill, and Lancaster in 1965’s The Hallelujah Trail.

But it wasn’t all fighting on the set, as Kirk Douglas related this story from the set: “There was a very tense dramatic moment in the film: Burt, alone and without a gun, is facing a saloon full of tough cowboys. I come in, pull my gun, snatch a gun from one of the cowboys, toss it to Burt, and the two of us subdue the entire room. We go out on the porch and Burt says to me, ‘Thanks, Doc.’ I was supposed to say, ‘Forget it.’ When I came to ‘Forget it,’ the ridiculousness of the scene-our great bravery, our machismo-made us howl. We did the scene over and over. It just made us laugh harder. Finally, we were laughing so hard, they had to stop shooting for the day and send us home like bad boys.” (Douglas, p.247) 

Seven Days in May is a better overall movie than Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, but if you want to see the on-screen chemistry between these two great actors, Gunfight is the film to watch.