HSB opens with Elvis and friends

Here's a very quick report on yesterday's special Elvis Costello set. I wasn't there but put this together from notes from my sister Joanne. The friends were Emmylou Harris, who has toured with Costello, and her close buddies Gillain Welch and David Rawlings.

Joanne missed the beginning, but when she arrived Costello was on stage with his band, The Hammer of the Honky Tonk Gods. She heard Walk the Line, War of the Roses, and Angels Want to Wear My Red Shoes. Then she was much taken by the piano players vocal on Satisfied Mind.

Dressed in cowboy shirt and sunglasses as the late-afternoon sun broke through, Elvis said since it was a bluegrass festival he would play his "cowboy song," Jerry Garcia's Loser. Then the band rocked out on Mystery Dance before the special guests were invited up.

Elvis and Emmylou dueted on her I'll Still Miss Someone and Gram Parson's classic Love Hurts, which Joanne found especially moving. She felt that Gillian looked cold and anorexic in her old-fashioned dress, but she was much impressed with David Rawling's guitar work and stage presence.

Elvis said some more nice things about playing in San Francisco, which he said was the first city he ever played in the U.S. According to Joanne, the Banjo stage meadow was surprisingly full for a workday concert, and the audience cheered loudly for Costello's Scarlet Tide, including a new antiwar verse sung acapella.

He closed with When I Paint My Masterpiece before bringing his guest back out for a couple of encores.