Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe Make for Dream Team at Orange County Tour Stop: Concert Review

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Nick Lowe and Shakespeare were wrong, about having to be cruel to be kind.

A tour stop Tuesday in Anaheim that had Lowe supporting headliner Elvis Costello as an opening act before eventually joining him for three climactic duets was kindly and 100% cruelty-free, reuniting the two former studio workmates in a fashion that made it seem as if no 40-year intervals had passed at all, except for the incidental actually-getting-better factors. (You’re not getting older, you’re getting Basher, etc.) Not that the show at the City National Grove of Anaheim — one of several SoCal appearances this week by Costello, with and without Lowe in tow — needed its crowning dream-teaminess to come up aces.

Costello’s current sets with the Imposters represent the best example rock ‘n’ roll has at the moment of a vast catalog of classic material played with improvisational vigor by one of the great bands the medium has known, augmented by fresh material that can stand proudly alongside the vintage. “Indoor Fireworks” was one of the quieter songs performed Tuesday, but it’s an apt description of what’s occurring on this can’t-miss outing (with apologies to the shed stops where the group pyro happens outdoors).

Nothing has been guaranteed on this tour — certainly nothing as jejune as a standard nightly setlist for Costello, who, in 19- or 20-song sets, has been doing about eight or nine songs different each night from the show before.