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Elvis Costello & The Imposters

31 March - 2 April 2024

In the Concert Hall

Contemporary Music

Multi-award winning singer-songwriter and rock ’n’ roll hall of famer Elvis Costello returns to the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall – with his legendary band The Imposters – for the first time in 17 years.

Electric atmosphere in barnstorming show.

The Guardian

Pump it up with the return of a rock 'n' roll legend

His career is legendary, spanning more than four decades and thirty-plus albums, and his songs – “Alison”, “Pump It Up”, “This Year’s Model”, “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding” – are classics, explosive punk energy channeled through the timelessness of classic rock ’n’ roll songwriting. Now, after 17 long years, multi-award winning singer-songwriter Elvis Costello is returning to the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall for three dynamite, career-spanning performances, and he’s bringing his indefatigable band The Imposters along for the ride.

Costello has written lyrics for compositions by Charles Mingus, Billy Strayhorn and Oscar Peterson and musical settings for words by W.B. Yeats and Bob Dylan.  Costello’s songs have been recorded by a great number of artists, including George Jones, Linda Ronstadt, Georgie Fame, Chet Baker, Johnny Cash, June Tabor, Roy Orbison, Dusty Springfield, Robert Wyatt, Anne Sofie von Otter, Solomon Burke and Darlene Love.  

During his career, Costello has received numerous prestigious honours, including two Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting, a BAFTA for the music written with Richard Harvey for Alan Bleasdale’s television drama series “G.B.H.” and a Grammy for “I Still Have That Other Girl” from his 1998 collaboration with Burt Bacharach, Painted From Memory. In January 2020, Costello received the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for his 2018 studio record, Look Now.  Elvis Costello and The Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. The same year, Costello was awarded ASCAP’s prestigious Founder’s Award.  In 2016 Elvis Costello was inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in the company of Chip Taylor and Tom Petty.

Fresh off their most recent album, this year’s The Boy Named If, Elvis Costello and The Imposters – essentially the Attractions plus bassist Davey Faragher – have been touring an electrifying two-hour set with the combustible energy of men a third their age, drawing heavily on a beloved back catalogue that runs from early, stone-cold classics like records My Aim is True, This Year’s Model and Armed Forces to their latest work.

Whether you’re a diehard fan or a Costello newcomer, this is one show you won’t want to miss.

Sydney Opera House Presents

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