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	ELVIS COSTELLO GETTING HAPPY

Elvis Costello is in love again. The edge is off, and the heart (never hidden too deeply) is revealed, and if new partner Diana Krall is to blame, then we may be able to forgive at least one album’s worth of piano jazz to come. At FleetBoston Pavilion on Saturday, Costello delivered a packed evening that covered his career, though the latest, When I Was Cruel (Island/Def Jam), did end up slighted (the raucous "Tear Off Your Own Head" made it into the second encore). Jamming 16 songs into a 75-minute set before two encores pushed the evening past the two-hour mark, he and the three Impostors ran the gamut, from sardonic ("Pump It Up" and "Radio, Radio") to sweet (the Patsy Cline–identified "Sweet Dreams"). But any remaining vitriol from his meaner puns had long dissipated, leaving its bite only in the political notes of the evening: Mose Allison’s "Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy" and his now-standard final encore, Nick Lowe’s anthemic "(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding." What mattered was the music, and lots of it.

From the kickstart of "Waiting for the End of the World," he leapt deep into his catalogue, hardly pausing for one song to end before revving into the next. It was a difficult pace to maintain, and half a dozen songs in, following "Everyday I Write the Book," the gleefully beaming Costello let things settle, moving into a straight-ahead version of Allison’s hipster blues and then giving up enough of the spotlight to allow keyboardist Steve Nieve to play up his Latin rhythms (on "Clubland") and, a few numbers later, Stax-Volt soul, nearly reverting to the Sam & Dave original of "I Can’t Stand Up (For Falling Down)." Not that Costello ever relinquished control: though his breakneck timing didn’t allow much in the way of audience interaction, he invited the crowd in, urging syncopated handclaps ("Uncomplicated") and toying with the inevitable sing-along of "Watching the Detectives" by altering the phrasings in his current space-age/bachelor-pad version (in which Nieve went a bit wild with effects).

Was "Pump It Up," the set closer, a bit raw? Maybe so, but after 25 years, Costello’s snarl (emanating from his guitar as well as from that twisted grin) can be excused. When he returned, he showed his cards by wallowing in the big-throated sentiment of his "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror"/"You Really Got a Hold on Me" medley. And that aptly placed vocal break that cracked in an otherwise perfectly controlled rendering of "Sweet Dreams"? Pure Cline: his voice (as well as his art) remains true.