When Elvis Costello and the reformed Attractions played “Pump It Up” at Brighton Dome in the ’90s, its thuggish thunder felt intent on reclaiming their brutal youth – and cracking the ceiling if it could.
This opening UK night of the Radio Soul! The Early Songs of Elvis Costello tour with the Imposters – the same band, except for bassist Davey Faragher, joined by guest guitarist Charlie Sexton – promises similar vintage thrills. Yet as we discover when Costello and co take the stage of the Brighton Dome, musicians, audience and even some key lyrics have changed. These are songs of an angry young man, now seen through a 71-year-old’s lens: often softer, sometimes slower, shaped by passing years, but still urgent enough to meet a fraught present moment.
They walk on to Sonny Rollins’ “Alfie’s Theme”, and Costello moves straight into 1977’s “Mystery Dance”. Pete Thomas’s tom-heavy patterns drive Sexton’s rockabilly rumble and Steve Nieve’s mercurial keyboards. They quickly lock into a convincing take on that old Attractions sound – on a pre-Attractions song – splicing sweaty ’60s club soul with accelerating punk. “Lipstick Vogue” is taken at full tilt, riding Thomas’s hammering snare. Costello once considered calling a collection from this 1977–86 period Emotional Fascism, and the sweaty political and sexual paranoia that marked his writing still cuts through: “Sometimes I almost feel / Just like a human being…”
“It feels just like the Jubilee again,” Costello says, recalling a 1977 Brighton show. That year’s breakthrough single with the Attractions, “Watching The Detectives”, is an early highlight. Nieve’s melodica evokes a fogbound dockside as the lights turn hell-red for the song’s ska noir. Costello’s glasses take on an insectoid glint, while a vintage mic effect sends the vocal in from somewhere Lynchian as a femme fatale enters the frame: “I don’t know how much more of this I can take / She’s filing her nails as they’re dragging the lake.” Film noir feels the right lens for these songs of fear and recoil. “I don’t want to be hung up, strung up,” he sings in “Little Triggers”, Nieve’s rueful piano deepening the mood. Often, Costello’s voice sits low in the mix, absorbed into the sound, with the band carrying the atmosphere and its emotional ambivalence.
Costello’s restlessness nudges against the format. “The early songs could mean earlier today – or something I started 50 years ago and finished tonight,” he says. A new solo acoustic piece follows, loose and discursive, its hints of showbiz infidelity and self-deception revealing it as an early sketch of “Accidents Will Happen”. “It starts like a love song and ends up like a curse,” he sings, before the Imposters crash into the finished version.
The band then shift into a stripped-back acoustic set, clustered stage-right with stand-up bass and the brushed jazz textures of Thomas’s compact kit – a setup Sexton knows well from his years with Dylan. Costello, waistcoat fastened, places a gold shoe on the monitor and explores the country-leaning worlds of Almost Blue and King of America. Charlie Rich’s “Who Will the Next Fool Be?” drifts into “Almost Blue”, threaded with “All Or Nothing At All” in a passage of quiet, cutting regret. “Good Year For The Roses” gains soft cowboy harmonies, while “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down” extends the Americana detour into the Sam & Dave original’s slow-burn soul. Midway through, Costello snaps back into the Attractions’ wired-up hit version, ushering in the night’s final, more expansive phase.
He says nothing directly about current events, Reform or racist riots in the streets. Yet these songs still feel sharply alive. “Less Than Zero”, written after seeing Oswald Mosley treated respectfully on ’70s television, lands squarely, followed by “Oliver’s Army”. Its once-contentious lyric is rewritten again, with a new verse invoking street violence that leaves “one more widow, one more pallbearer”. Rather than retreating, the song feels broken open and remade in the present.
“Alison” balances tenderness and threat over its aching melody, while “Pump It Up” leans more celebratory than thuggish now. Costello and the Imposters close an unexpectedly subtle masterclass with “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding”. As they ask, “Where are the strong / And who are the trusted?”, the question lands squarely in the here and now.
Elvis Costello & The Imposters set list for the Brighton Dome, June 12, 2026:
Mystery Dance
Lipstick Vogue
Watching The Detectives
Little Triggers
Watch Your Step
Accidents Will Happen (Early Draft)
Accidents Will Happen
Opportunity
Lovers Walk
Who Will The Next Fool Be
Almost Blue/All Or Nothing At All
(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
Good Year For The Roses
Lovable
Honey, Are You Straight Or Are You Blind?
I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down
High Fidelity
Less Than Zero
Oliver’s Army
Alison
Every Day I Write The Book
(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea
Pump It Up
(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding