Celebrity News

Elvis Costello plays a different show every night

Elvis Costello, who is performing at Carnegie Hall this month, says he never plays from a fixed set list.

“I play a different show every night. I will take a theme, like I’ll come onstage and say, ‘Tonight it’s love and deceit’ . . . There isn’t a script, I am making it up as I go along, and it makes it feel more immediate.”

Costello says it’s a way to “come to the best known songs,” and not like he is just “doing that one for a cheap round of plays.”

When asked about any pre-show rituals, the singer cracked, “Other than the slaughtering of the goats, no.”