Elvis Costello: Playing with The Imposters and Charlie Sexton on June 17 return to York Barbican. Picture: Ray Di Pietro
ELVIS Costello will return to York Barbican for the first time since May 2012 in the first of six new additions to his Radio Soul! Tour, alongside Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, Paris and Dublin.
Tickets for Elvis Costello & The Imposters with Charlie Sexton on June 17 will go on sale at 10am on March 6 at https://www.yorkbarbican.co.uk/whats-on/elvis-costello/.
Last time, Costello wheeled out his gigantic vaudevillian contraption for his Spectacular Singing Book show, where The Imposters’ three-hour set list was decided by the spinning of a wheel with myriad song titles displayed on it.
Now, in the company of The Imposters’ Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher and Texan guitarist Charlie Sexton, the focus will be on Radio Soul!: The Early Songs Of Elvis Costello.
As the playful billing suggests, Costello’s show will feature numbers drawn from record releases from My Aim Is True in 1977 to Blood & Chocolate in 1986, complemented by “other surprises”.
Those nine years saw the first appearance of such renowned Costello compositions as Watching The Detectives and I Want You, along with songs that have remained in The Imposters’ live repertoire for 20 or more years, Alison, Man Out Of Time and Brilliant Mistake, among them.
“For any songwriter, it has to be a compliment if people want to hear songs written up to 50years ago. Among them, Radio Soul, the first draft of what eventually became Radio Radio,” says Costello, now 71.
“You can expect the unexpected and the faithful in equal measure. Don’t forget this show is ‘Performed by Elvis Costello & The Imposters’, an ensemble which includes three people who first recorded this music and two more who bring something entirely new.
“They are nobody’s tribute band. The Imposters are a living, breathing, swooning, swinging, kicking and screaming rock-and-roll band who can turn their hands to a pretty ballad when the opportunity arises.”
These dates follow the Autumn 2024 release of King Of America & Other Realms, a six-CD anthology that tells the story of his 1986 album, recorded with The Confederates, and the music to which it led.
The King Of America songs are expected to be heard in the mid-show interlude, along with songs written as long ago as 1975 and even some of those “pretty ballads” that Costello has promised.
In September 2024, Costello brought his career-spanning presentation, 15 Songs From 50 Years, to Leeds City Varieties Music Hall for four unique performances over two days with regular Attractions and Imposters’ sidekick Steve Nieve by his side once more.
Costello selected from each of the five decades of his songwriting, whether solo or in the company of Flip City; American country rock band Clover; The Attractions; Squeeze’s Chris Difford; The Coward Brothers, with T-Bone Burnett; the Confederates; Paul McCartney; the Brodsky Quartet; The Imposters; Burt Bacharach, Allen Toussaint or the Roots.
Chris Difford, by the way, will be his special guest at June 17’s show.