Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve review at Leeds City Varieties Music Hall
Inspired by a New York residency, the duo play the first of four shows over two nights in a faux-homecoming event marked by fragile smokiness and near-reverent reception
“This is so beautiful to be here for a kick-off,” Elvis Costello addresses the lushly ornate surroundings of the City Varieties Music Hall just a few songs into his early evening performance in the heart of Leeds. “Frank Carson was here, I think.” Behind, long-time musical foil and friend Steve Nieve sits at a polished piano, surrounded on three sides by tottering stacks of additional keyboards. Effectively stripped and alone under nineteenth-century light fixtures, the pair are at garrulous ease, keenly in their element.
Plenty of iconic names have tread the boards at this Grade II-listed relic from the Victorian Era – Charlie Chaplin, Harry Houdini and Buster Keaton are among those who appeared in its heyday – but few shows have generated quite such excitement over the past quarter-century than these performances. The Paddington-born singer-songwriter – the son of a jazz trumpeter who moved to the capital from nearby Chapeltown shortly before his birth – has touted this curtain-raiser as a faux-homecoming event, and duly treated it with such reverence; this first show is one of four, to be played over two nights, billed as a limited run by the name of 15 Songs from 50 Years.
The concept, drawn from last year’s residency at New York’s Gramercy Theatre where Costello vowed to play a hundred different songs over ten nights – and ultimately more than doubled his haul – promises few repeats and little deviations, though it does offer deep dives into what is one of the most storied catalogues in British music. Those who possess only a passing appreciation of his hit singles are unlikely to be rewarded here; this is a format designed to reward the purist in career-spanning fashion, stretching from 1977 debut My Aim is True through 2022’s late-era delight The Boy Named If.
