Elvis Costello & the Imposters featuring Charlie Sexton, Royal Oak Music Theatre, October 9, 2025

Thursday night, a few songs into the show, Elvis Costello mentions that this is a tour of earlier material, but that when he’d planned it, he didn’t realize that he would have to contend with the fact that he seemed to have had access to a crystal ball, with songs like “Waiting for the End of the World” or “Accidents Will Happen.” My brain immediately and loudly volunteered LESS THAN ZERO.  “I hear that South America is coming back in style” did not quell that accusation. (They’d walked out onstage Heaven 17’s “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thing,” clearly becoming a song of our current moment.)

Elvis Costello and the Attractions are out again right now, touring something called “Radio Soul,” which was advertised as “the early songs of Elvis Costello.” I saw them on Thursday night here in Detroit (okay, actually Royal Oak). It was a less experimental set than the previous two outings I recently saw (Ryman | Meadowbrook | Ann Arbor), although there is a portion of the evening where the band adjourns to sit stage right around the piano (because you can’t move a grand piano around easily) and a handful of songs are stripped down and rearranged a bit.

But it was in the opening run of tunes that I realized something was off. It wasn’t just whether Elvis could hit the notes, it was also that he couldn’t manage several of the more syncopated phrasings. “Mystery Dance” requires a certain crispness in the vocal delivery, and it just wasn’t there. “Go, Charlie, go,” is a phrase I’ll never not be enthralled by, especially since my Elvis fan service ticket put me in the last seat in the front row on stage left. 

In my notes under “Watching the Detectives” I wrote “Bob.” I knew what I meant. 

Last weekend, I was doing some web searches on something else entirely which sent me into a Reddit thread of people complaining about their experience at recent Elvis shows and how they felt “ripped off” because of the way the songs were presented. And I watched some videos of a show a couple of nights before mine and realized that there might actually be some truth to a Reddit thread. 

Now I was witnessing it myself, and realizing that something had drastically changed with Elvis’ voice even in the short span between this show and Ann Arbor this past spring. For a specific example, on “Waiting Til The End of the World,” he dropped the chorus to just “waiting….” and then broke up “I sincerely hope you’re coming / cause you really started something” in a more irregular way. 

My heart froze. I am watching someone I have followed since their very earliest days and it is the first time that they are not in complete command of their instrument. We age; we possess human bodies that we cannot control. We are watching as the artists whose work accompanied us through our lifetimes depart the planet, while we ourselves consider whether a show will be general admission and if it is, the price we will pay for standing on concrete versus wood versus the metal of a crash barrier the next day. The music industry has not evolved one iota in this regard; as an example, I think a lot about an industry where 70 and 80 year olds have to perform at outdoor amphitheaters in the middle of the summer and at what that costs all of us.

Elvis’ voice got looser as the night progressed – by “Less than Zero,” five songs in, it had stretched out sufficiently so it seemed to be less of a struggle. and by the time they had moved to the unplugged segment of the show, it had far more elasticity. Elvis is Elvis, he is a consummate performer, so he just kept plowing through any difficulty, one time switching to a completely separate microphone which seemed to solve the problem. 

This was the first time I’ve seen Elvis Costello where I couldn’t just sit there singing along to the songs either out loud or in my head when they were being presented in a straightforward fashion. And it hit me that this is how it feels when I go see Dylan, but I know what to expect so it is not jarring. I think this is going to be a different kind of Elvis Costello show moving forward because he is not able to just blast through a set any more. He is going to have to find new ways around and into the songs, and probably a different approach to setlist sequencing, that don’t necessarily rely on his voice being at its full power. 

This is where I want to make it clear that I would be perfectly happy with that! That is an approach that is acceptable in other genres but for some reason we haven’t yet sufficiently normalized that in rock and roll. I’ve spent decades now holding my breath during certain portions of Who songs because it’s always a gamble whether Roger is going to hit the notes or not. That’s because there’s no real alternative to the power scream in a conventional version of  “Won’t Get Fooled Again” or “Love, Reign O’er Me.” And that’s without taking into account how Roger Daltrey wants to approach this situation. It’s not that singers don’t know themselves that they’re losing range, it’s whether or not they want to accept that fact, or keep doggedly plowing through. 

“Little Triggers,” “Lovers Walk,” “Man Out of Time,” “Shipbuilding” – this is a fucking incredible run of songs. Just impeccable, unforgettable, bulletproof. “Deportee” never doesn’t hit hard, and once again, wasn’t helping him beat the crystal ball accusations. I can’t believe I got to see “Clubland” twice within recent memory, even if this version was lighter and brighter than the original, it still soared.

He went over to sit behind the always magnificent Steve Nieve to play a Fender Rhodes for one of the songs from his partnership with Allen Toussaint, “The Greatest Love,” and got one of several standing ovations, mostly recognizing how he just fucking fought through whatever difficulties to absolutely deliver the material. “Indoor Fireworks” and “A Face in the Crowd” were delivered with so much feeling and effort. And the Hank Williams cover, introduced as "Johnny Cash singing Hank Williams" was delightful in the extreme.

During the unplugged set, Elvis talked about how he wished we had been able to see the other Elvis in his 80s, and offered some thoughts on songs he would have covered had he still been around. “Rio” by Duran Duran was one, “Heart of Glass” was the other, and Elvis gleefully supplied what he thought those would’ve sounded like. (There were so many people in front row center recording all night that I am shocked I cannot find this on Youtube.)

The encore lasted longer than anyone expected; when I was parking my car before the show, A Man decided that I had some kind of intimate knowledge as to how the parking worked at this particular lot and when I explained I was likely just as much in the dark as he was, but the signage about what to do seemed to be clear, he noted the time cutoff and that he planned on walking out during “Pump It Up.” If he did, he missed another five songs, including “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” – I will always remember the time I got to watch Elvis sing that with Bruce Springsteen onstage at the fucking Apollo – a particularly sharp “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea,” the always-timely “Peace, Love and Understanding,” and a particularly raucous and joyful cover of “Slow Down” which seemed to be added for the enjoyment of the Attractions, judging by the looks on their faces. 

A couple of people – both IRL and on Reddit – said they were “disappointed” in these recent Elvis shows, and I think “disappointed” isn’t the right word here. Elvis isn’t doing this because he’s lazy or because he doesn’t give a fuck about giving a great performance. He’s doing this because this is where he is. “Disappointing” is when you spend the money on a concert and the artist is too fucked up to perform. Or if the band hasn’t rehearsed enough before the tour started and decides to spend the first few shows as glorified soundchecks. “Disappointed” is when a show or a whole tour gets cancelled because of illness or a physical malady, and you have non-refundable airfare to another city.

But also? There was nothing “disappointing” about this Elvis show. I actually think he worked even harder than he usually does because he was trying to power through his limitations with every single bone and cell in his body. It helps, a lot, that this band has been out with him forever and so they know every single note of every song. Charlie Sexton is bandleading so Elvis doesn’t have to think about that, and for that reason, he’s even more valuable now than he was as the person who could keep the band on the road while Elvis took a song in a more improvisatory direction. 

And even with this experience and this knowledge, I’ll still go see him every time he’s nearby, because now I don’t know how much longer I’ll get to do this. He has been a constant and he will remain one until one or both of us can’t do this any more.