Elvis Costello & the Imposters, Ryman Auditorium, January 29, 2024

[ed. note: I wrote this on my iPad at the airport & the workflow was too clunky to add media, I’ve added some now but also you can find more on instagram]

Famous last words: I did not know there was going to be a horn section.

When I received the email newsletter from Elvis Costello announcing his winter tour, I saw there was a show in Nashville at the Ryman Auditorium. There was an opportunity to purchase tickets through a fan service. I have never seen a show at the Ryman (I have tried!), I haven’t been to Nashville in 10 years, I have friends I wanted to see, it’s a quick trip from Detroit, I fly in the day before, fly out the following day. No big deal. I have meals with friends, I visit the National Museum of African American Music, I have dinner, I stroll across the street and inside the Mother Church.

Also exciting: my assigned seat. I said “yes I will sit anywhere in these sections” and was in the third row right up against the stage. This meant that I would not see Pete Thomas all night and if Elvis was planning to go play mad scientist with his tape loop box that’s in front of Steve Nieve’s grand piano for any length of time, I would not be able to see him. But otherwise I had a straight shot to Elvis and everyone’s favorite snack, Charlie Sexton, as well as the rock bottom solid and ever reliable Davy Faragher.

I was finally seeing a show at the Ryman! I was sitting in one of the pews. Those unmistakable stained glass windows were just over my shoulder. I was still vibrating at a pretty high frequency by the time I settled into my seat and this is why I think I did not register that there were three microphones in front of me with accompanying music stands as well as a random ancient flugelhorn, because under normal circumstances I would have of course immediately realized that horns were afoot. So this is why when, a few songs in, Elvis asks us to welcome some special guests and on walk a three-piece horn section, one of which was Donny McCaslin, it was all I could do to not completely lose my shit.

But even if I had been prepared for this show at my usual levels it would not have mattered because this show ended up being fucking bonkers. He played for three hours. He veered all over his catalog and his history and exercised his considerable skill as a raconteur. I was prepared for another free jazz exploration where Elvis pulls his songs apart and then reassembles them differently, and the Imposters basically do their best to follow him. But instead we got three hours of songs across the eras, the kind of show where you cannot possibly predict what is going to happen next. If you look at the earlier sets, they are also wide-ranging, but they were not at all at this level.