Elvis Costello Solo: Who Needs a Band?

A concert review from 1989

Who needs drums? Who needs bass? Who needs piano? Certainly not Elvis Costello, who is on a do-it-himself college and club solo tour, with his friend Nick Lowe to open the show. Tuesday night at C.W. Post's Tilles Center in Greenvale, L.I., he proved that if you can sing a song convincingly and strum a guitar with ferocity, everything else is frou-frou.

From the opening notes of "Accidents Will Happen," you could see why Costello, despite his predeliction for melody, was associated with the punks when his music hit these shores in the late1970s. He stroked his guitar with such embryonic fury that it seemed only kryptonite could weaken the strings. And he spat out his carefully crafted lyrics with such controlled hysteria that a word like "love" sounded like a curse.

Without a band, Costello was able rewire his material, with spontaneous-sounding arrangements illuminating new angles. On "Mystery Dance," Costello sounded like basic 1950s rock greaser Gene Vincent with a literature degree.…