The best rock show this week in Philadelphia happened 29 years ago in Toronto, which either means the winter doldrums are officially upon us or we’re just feeling especially knock-kneed, pissed-off, bespectacled and amphetamined for no particular reason other than it just seems right and natural. Either way, we’re amusing ourselves imagining the punch-up that will invariably ensue when we master time travel (muahahahaha!) and send circa 1978 Elvis Costello to the doorstep of circa 2007 Elvis Costello (a guy who seems more like a Declan MacManus these days, though isn’t that as it should be?). Imagine the mutual looks of loathing and distrust as the two square off on the front porch. Middle-aged Elvis is probably wearing a bathrobe and a pork pie hat.
Young Elvis is probably in a skinny tie and blazer and speeding his tits off — he will invariably throw the first punch upon learning that it’s only a matter of time before he’s warbling standards with Burt Bachrach and shacking up with Diana Krall (mazel tov on the twins, you two!). And so we give you Live at the El Mocambo — recorded on a raw and blustery winter night — kinda like tonight — where people are just itching to shout and sweat and smoke-and-drink and shake shit up. By winter 1978, Elvis had only released My Aim is True and was about to drop This Year’s Model, so the hits feel like sleet on your cheek — raw, sting-y and they just keep coming. Dig it. We do.