Please don't remind me! She coulda had me... 
Posted on 05/26/2005 10:16:45 PM PDT by ambrose
Costello fans walk out in disgust
NAOMI CANTON
26 May 2005 13:04
Outraged fans walked out in disgust last night after Elvis Costello arrived on stage several hours late because he was watching the football.
He then shouted abuse at the audience and deliberately played badly.
The avid Liverpool fan had arrived on stage at the UEA at 9.40pm because he tried to catch the Champions League final on television.
Many fans had been waiting for him since 7.30pm and so when he received a hostile reaction from fans, he proceeded to shout abuse at them and under perform.
Andrew Milnes, of Wood Street, Norwich, was outraged. He said:
"At first I balked at the £25 tickets to see Elvis Costello at the UEA, but he was, after all, a hero of my youth, having written, produced and sung some of the greatest material of the late seventies.
"The tickets stated there was no support band so we arrived early and took up a good front-of-stage position. Then we heard the rumour that he was watching the football and he was.
"A support band was given the unenviable task of soothing an increasingly hostile crowd. When Elvis eventually daned to appear at 9.40pm there was loud booing.
"His reaction to this was to hurl abuse and play loudly, not very grown up, but more importantly, not very good.
"Great as he is, Elvis is not a guitar hero and this stint earned him a soaking with water from a fan.
"His band the Imposters probably knocked back by the hostile reaction, played like amateurs, the crowd knew the material better than they did and could probably have played it better too.
"The whole thing seemed to be done on the cheap and at £25 a ticket, that's not good enough."
Malca Schotten, from Norwich, was also in the audience. She said: "Some of us had been there since 7.30pm and didn't realise he was going to be late, so we were annoyed to say the least.
"Although there were some people shouting and throwing things, most people were polite.
"His reaction was completely over the top. He was swearing and gesturing to the crowd, showing a complete lack of respect - I don't care how famous you are, you should respect your fans.
"I paid £50 to take my sister for her birthday, I've always wanted to see him live and was really looking forward to it.
"His behaviour was disgusting and we were the first to walk out and plenty of people followed."
Shipbuilding. It's gotta be one of his bests.
He then shouted abuse at the audience and deliberately played badly.
Have some understanding, people. It's very stressful to be entrusted with America's nuclear codes.
(A contender for my favorite album of all time: The Juliet Letters.)
Jake Riviera was a big deal at Stiff Records and got him to use Elvis , ... he was Declan McManus,performing as D.P. Costello
Andy Kaufman IS Tony Clifton IS Elvis Costello.
Please don't remind me! She coulda had me...
What is an elvis costello? Is that the white porcelain fixture with a seat in my bathroom that I use to take a crap in?
After the breakup of the beatles, John Lennon began mixing with the London music scene that was early punk.
This better explains the work he was doing with the Plastic Ono Band. Not that it excuses it
Are you kidding?
Zappa treated HIS audiences like they were little kids, lecturing them to shut up and sit down and "stop making noises like a bunch of cattle."
As someone who saw Zappa play several dozen times, I can say that the one thing that irked me about him was his attitude of superiority.
I remember seeing him once in Princeton at McCarter Theater (?) and he began throwing back the dental floss that audience members were flipping onto the stage.
Zappa, for all his musical talents, was no respecter of the public.
Exactly. "Watching the Detectives" and "Oliver's Army" are two alltime classics that were groundbreaking.
Costello was great, and maybe still is.
I just haven't seen him or bought his new CDs.
I think there was an article in National Review MANY YEARS AGO (more than I can remember) but..roughly...back in the '80s somewhere thereabouts which mentioned Iggy Pop's claim to being the first "punk." I am going to guess this was an article by D. Keith Mano, but I really can't remember. The timeframe for this "proto-punk" Iggy would have been something like '67 or '68. A hypoglycemic neurotic coming down from a Speed or Cocaine crash could probably rant and rave with about as much pure rage as a punk. "Helter Skelter" in the White Album with its mega guitar distortion certainly has some similarities. I think pop musicologists have occasionally accorded The Kinks the honor as well.The beating Townshend gave to that poor SG at Woodstock also scores well on a Johnny Rotten Rage Scale, although the satirical targets were different then.
At any rate, there was an Angry Young Men sound BEFORE "punk" proper. Correct. Themes of social subversion and the inversion of authoritative power structures have a long history. Although The Pistols, Ramones, and Patti Smith were one of a kind. Phenomenon sui generis.
Some scholars might want to relate Plastic Ono to the absurdist nightclub acts of Weimar and Berlin in the '20s. Maybe Astrid Kirchherr could help us out there. Help! (the film) was actually a riot and well worth studying for the relevant clues.
Someone told me a real howler once - that Yoko was a KGB agent sent in to take the Fabs out because they were building up too much international good feeling for the West and the English language! LOL!
Liverpool won the game. You would think he would've been in a good mood.
The parting of fools and their money.
However, Bacharach's melodies are so unbelievable on some of the tunes that the lyics could of been chicken scratch and the songs would work.
In Elvis' defense, it was a great game!
That's a pretty good argument actually. He loses no footballers on this one.
I was going to say the same thing about "Inch By Inch," but he sounds like a real prize in the personality department.
And on that "proto-punk" psychoarchaeology, let's not forget Gene Vincent, Link Wray, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
My brother refers to this as "dork eschatology." Eruptions of the egocentrically challenged.
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