Elvis Costello will tomorrow return to home ground after more than 40 years to headline a bill with his family for the first time.
Costello will play Kew Gardens, not far from where he grew up in Twickenham, and is making it a family affair with two of his younger siblings, Ruairi and Ronan MacManus, known as the MacManus Brothers, also in the line-up.
“It’s the first time we’ve been scheduled together. It is curious. And it is probably the closest to the home parish that any of us could imagine,” he said today.
The singer-songwriter of hits such as Oliver’s Army, Alison and Pump It Up was born Declan Patrick MacManus and spent his youth in Twickenham, the son of Ross MacManus, a band leader and musician who played with the Joe Loss Orchestra among others, and Lilian, who sold records.
Costello, 59, made his first public appearance in a folk club in the basement of St Elizabeth’s Catholic Church in nearby Richmond in about 1969 but hasn’t played a local gig since. He has four half-brothers by his father’s second marriage and they share “common musical ground — it’s just inherited”. They become even closer since their father’s death three years ago.
“There is the potential for quite a bit of harmonising,” he said.
“Often when people are related to each other, when you harmonise there’s a kind of spooky thing that happens. We didn’t grow up together as kids and had never sung together but when I heard Ruairi, he sounded uncannily like me on my early records.”
They can all remember their father touring with his band when they were young, Costello said, adding: “It was different from my friends’ dads. Exactly when their dads were coming home, dad went to work. I think being around music when you’re a kid makes it ordinary and exceptional at the same time.”
Costello said he was thrilled to be appearing in Kew the Music Summer Concerts, adding “It’s a different atmosphere outdoors.”
