Live at the El Mocambo

This 1978 Canadian radio broadcast captures Elvis Costello performing tunes from his first two albums. There’s an inherent intensity and expressiveness not found in the studio recordings—that rare sound of a taut live band fully aware of their musical purpose. “Radio Radio,” “Pump It Up,” and “Welcome to the Working Week” all rage with spare, tightfisted punk fury, and the relatively gentle “Little Triggers” soothes with rawer, bruised-up sensitivity. There’s in-your-living-room immediacy, too, and you can feel, for example, the hollowed-out reggae of “Watching the Detectives” like never before.