The Irish singer-songwriter opens for Elvis Costello tonight at Wolf Trap.
Every Elvis Costello concert is a game of trainspotting. It’d be tough to name another songwriter who’s produced as much original material over the last 35 years. As always, he found room in the 28-song, 130-minute set at Lisner Auditorium for stuff that would set even the most pious of fans a-Googling to identify.
Grabbing a microphone and cane while donning a black top hat, the evening’s ringleader, Napoleon Dynamite, announces to the audience: “We’ll perform songs about love! Songs about sex! Songs about death and songs about dancing! But not necessarily in that order.”
On February 28, 1978, Elvis Costello was 23 years old and convinced of his own magnificence. His second album — but crucially, his first with the Attractions, the three musicians with whom he’d make his most celebrated records — the furious, paranoid, Aftermath-styled This Year’s Model, would be released the following week, and would top the Village Voice and Rolling Stone critics’ polls at year’s end. At the close of his first U.S. tour, only…
How bad can it be to be Nick Lowe? That shock of fluffy white hair notwithstanding, the guy seems like he doesn’t know what stress is. The onetime Brinsley Schwartz pub-rocker, seminal Stiff Records producer, and punk pioneer releases albums at a glacial pace. He enjoys critical respectability coupled with the kind of low-level semi-fame that comes from being known more for your songwriting and production work than for your singing. In addition to manning…
>> We note the passing of one of the sporting world’s all-time greats: former Grambling State University coach Eddie Robinson. Robinson coached the Tigers from 1941 through 1997, compiling a record of 408-165-15. Redskins fans owe Robinson a debt of gratitude for coaching up the man who would ultimately replace him at Grambling, Doug Williams, who won the MVP award for leading the Skins to victory in Super Bowl XXII. >> Thank you, DCist…
Elvis Costello has built an illustrious career around not being a conformist. He has dipped his fingers into so many musical genres and collaborated with such a wide range of music legends that it is hard to know which Elvis will show up during his annual summer stop at Wolf Trap. Will it be angry, loud, rocker Elvis (2002)? Romantic Elvis (2004)? Country and bluegrass-infused Elvis (2005)? It is precisely that uncertainty that makes the…
Monday: Long before its Starship iteration, with all its associated abominable number one hits, the band called Jefferson Airplane (pictured) released some of the greatest psychedelic rock anthems of the late 1960s, fueled in part by the guitar and bass work of D.C. natives Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady. The two left the Jefferson collective to work on their blues side project, Hot Tuna, full-time, an undertaking they’ve continued to today. The duo play an…
Chances are you’ve already seen or heard the Robbers on High Street but just don’t know it. The band has been through D.C. a handful of times in the last two years, supporting artists like Fountains of Wayne, The Sleepy Jackson, Ambulance LTD and VHS or Beta. They’ve been the house band on Last Call With Carson Daly and also had songs featured on The Wedding Crashers Soundtrack as well as Six Feet Under…
Josh, Santos and the rest of the pack are back in D.C. (one night only!) for a DNC fund raiser. Santos pulls a respectable 19 percent in the New Hampshire primary and everyone, except Josh, is pleased. There’s a funny opening scene of Santos singing “Allison” by Elvis Costello, and really the man can carry a tune. He leans in a little too close to Josh, still singing, and Josh says, “Are you going to…