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Review & setlist: Elvis Costello was tender, tired, and ultimately triumphant at MGM Music Hall
Costello focused on his early songs, stumbling over a few but for the most part delivering them in roaring fashion.
Elvis Costello and The Imposters with Charlie Sexton at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Sept. 22, 2025.
“It seems like just yesterday we were here!” Elvis Costello declared to the crowd of veteran fans at MGM Music Hall on Monday night, and the sentiment makes sense: Elvis Costello has been here A LOT.
By “here” I mean Massachusetts, and by “a lot” I mean close to 10 times in the last five years alone. And if he’s been here that many times, think about how many times he’s been to all the other places.
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If that sounds exhausting, I’m sure that’s because it is — and for a brief period Monday night, it felt like the grueling schedule might have been catching up with the 71-year-old former Angry Young Man. But even if the show lagged a bit in the center, it started strong and finished triumphantly, showing once again that you can never count Elvis out.
Costello, accompanied by his longtime band The Imposters — Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas, and Davey Faragher, plus frequent guest guitarist Charlie Sexton — barrelled out of the gate with a fine take on “Mystery Dance” off of Costello’s very first album, 1977’s “My Aim is True.” Slightly slower and more menacing than the jokey original, it was actually an improvement on the recorded version, with Elvis digging into it in fine voice.
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It also set the tone for the night, which revolved around the theme of showcasing Costello’s first 10 years of recording: These wouldn’t be retreads but rather aged-up versions of classic songs, a little croakier than the originals but also more urgent.
It continued with “Watching the Detectives,” which Costello continues to insist on delivering with the lyrics just behind the beat in what can only be described as a kind of Dylanesque pique — it’s like he doesn’t want us singing along. But “Waiting for the End of the World” and “Less Than Zero” proved less frustrating, especially the latter: Costello’s first single still carries a winking punch with every familiar burst of “Heah, yeah-eh!” to close it out.
By this point, the excitement of seeing some of these old songs was really sinking in — the ballad ”Little Triggers” from 1978’s “This Year’s Model” (which is about emotional and not literal triggers, Elvis was quick to point out) was amazingly emotive, living up to the “soul” half of the tour’s title, “Radio Soul,” and ending with a trademark Elvis vocal outburst.
That was followed by a wild “Lovers Walk” that found Costello keeping up with Sexton on the guitar chops front, leading into maybe Costello’s punkiest track from his Attractions days, “Lipstick Vogue.” It was thrilling to hear Thomas slide into the song’s opening drum groove and wonder if the old boys would still be able to keep up. (They mostly did, or clearly were going to die trying — in particular Faragher, whose stunning work on bass stood out throughout the night.)
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The effort of that segment might have left Costello winded, though: “Poor Napoleon” off of 1986’s “Blood and Chocolate” (not really a forgotten classic, just kind of forgotten) came off as uninspired, and the Aretha Franklin cover “Running Out of Fools” was a little too far out of his range for him to be able to totally pull it off, although he acquitted himself with a soulful delivery of the “even fools like me” line at the dénouement.
He bounced back with “I Want You,” which is frankly kind of a slog when it turns up in the middle of “Blood and Chocolate,” but here — with its “Phantom of the Opera” organ flourishes from Nieve, Sexton’s eerie guitar work, and Costello’s crystal clear, biting lyrics delivered with a desperate anguish — it was a moody tour de force.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing from there, unfortunately: An acoustic set stumbled at first with a sleepy “Stranger in the House” and a hoarse version of “Brilliant Disguise” — the iconic opener to 1986’s “King of America” — that simply refused to gel. But a quirky Latin arrangement saved “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes,” and Costello delivered “Almost Blue” with a tossed-off whisper in a sad lower register that was simply perfect for its wee-small-hours, smoky-bar feel.
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A bouncy “Clubland” off of 1981’s “Trust” showed that the band had recharged its batteries, and from there it was off to the races: Without pausing for an official encore, Costello tore through high-energy, pitch-perfect versions of “I Don’t Want To Go To Chelsea,” “Radio, Radio,” and “King Horse,” and a positively jaunty “Everyday I Write the Book,” before delivering a tender, throaty version of his beloved early ballad, “Alison.”
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He closed with a “Pump It Up” that felt straight out of ’78, and a raucous (and timely)-as-ever (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” whose closing “Whoa-oh!” had the crowd, on its feet for all of these last seven songs, simply apoplectic.
We can only assume that Costello was being at least somewhat facetious when he said at one point that this would be the last time Boston would hear these songs — he’s notorious for spinning tall tales, and elsewhere in the show declared that he’d bought his shoes off of Kid Rock and that they’d stolen their gold-festooned drum kit from the notorious son of a “New York slumlord.” But if these truly were the literal swan songs for these classic numbers, each of them from one of the most miraculous first decades in rock history, I’d say they got a worthy sendoff.
Setlist for Elvis Costello at MGM Music Hall at Fenway, Sept. 22, 2025:
- (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding
- Mystery Dance
- Watching the Detectives
- Waiting for the End of the World
- Less Than Zero
- Little Triggers
- Lovers Walk
- Lipstick Vogue
- Poor Napoleon
- Runnin’ Out of Fools
- I Want You
- Stranger in the House
- Brilliant Mistake
- (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
- Almost Blue
- Clubland
- (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea
- Radio Radio
- King Horse
- Everyday I Write the Book
- Alison
- Pump It Up
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