Elvis Costello

Belfast Ulster Hall

St Patrick’s Day 1978

Anticipation was fever pitch, so an off-school early cider (in the alley behind the venue) was called for. In spring ’78 Elvis’s mighty This Year’s Model album presented him newly boosted by the nervejangling brilliance of his very own peerless rock’n’roll trio. Live they went to a next level – fittingly, in a venue just across the road from the Europa, the hotel where, six months earlier, The Clash held court when their Ulster Hall Belfast debut was called off, by the man.

From the sheer local perfection of opener Waiting For The End Of The World to the scary intensity of Night Rallies, bug-eyed Elvis bathed in blue light on a stage that also platformed Ian Paisley’s demagoguery, this show felt like a crazy, impossible victory. What a mad, brilliant band they were too – cranky, militaristic beats, those dizzying unsettling Nieve organ lines. Costello’s Geek That Snarled persona owned the stage, and he had the material to match.

The combined effect of the perfectly targeted lyrical arrowheads, breakneck pace, unrelenting sonic Semtex, took much longer to wear off than the cider. Could Elvis ever be so great again? Could anyone?