9:45 p.m. Friday, bone-chilled in Telluride’s Town Park: Listen, we saw and heard an awful lot of cool stuff since David Byrne danced off the stage in triumph Thursday night. We had a welcome dose of pure, clean bluegrass from the Blue Canyon Boys, remarkable progressive acoustic sounds from Crooked Still and The Greencards, loud rockin’country from Jenny Lewis and another normal Bela Fleck set, this time with West African cora virtuoso Toumani Diabate. We’ve seen him previously with a Tuvan throat singer, a theramin artist and a ukelele savant. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard “Dueling Banjos” done on five-string banjo and cora, a harp-like instrument.
But then came Elvis. The former angriest young man in punk wave rock arrived in his country crooner guise backed by the Sugarcanes, a six-man powerhouse assemblage including the exquisite harmonies of Jim Lauderdale plus Jerry Douglas and fiddler Stuart Duncan. He opened with “Mystery Train” and “Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down” and won the crowd with a strong rendering of his “Blame it on Cain.” Ballads and story songs from his new T Bone Burnett-produced album dealt with, as he announced, reprehensible politicians, murder, execution and love … the usual.
Then, from out of the depths of the dirge, Costello and company nailed a lilting version of the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil” and re-invented “Everyday I Write the Book” as a slowed, sweetened and harmonized confection. His hit “Red Shoes” became a waltz. It was only appropriate that he ended his set with the country classic “The Race is On” which segued into a satisfyingly twangy “(What’s SoFunny About) Peace, Love and Understanding.”
Understanding they’d witnessed a rare and special event, the crowd roared out a collective thank-you-very-much as Elvis left the stage, if not the building.