I’m part of a large group and we’re filing into a dining hall for a meal. The place has been decorated in modest psuedo-Nordic style. It feels like a tasteful restaurant in a museum or art gallery.
The dining hall is just about able to contain three extremely long wooden banquet tables. There are benches set on either side.
It’s a really tight fit, though. There’s an enormous number of us shuffling in. We cram ourselves onto the benches, awkwardly trying to make space not only for those on either side of us, but also for those on the benches immediately behind us.
Yet for all that effort, the meal barely lasts a few minutes. We have to leave so soon that it feels comical, given the amount of fuss that it took to get everyone all seated. Obediently, the group files out of the hall, with no real idea of why the stay was so brief.
Jesus: The Full Unauthorised Story
As I wait for the queue to move on, I make a joke about how “we’ll all be able to get discounts on our saver-return tickets.”
(The convoluted thinking behind this quip: our stay in the dining hall is analogous to a visit to a station on the rail network – any ticket machine would count the brief visit as some kind of glitch, rather than a chargeable element of the journey. So we wouldn’t end up paying for it. Dream humour – go figure.)
As we file out of the dining room, we pass a kind of small bookshop area. There are several rows of popular titles are displayed on a set of freestanding wooden shelves.
I notice that one of my university lecturers has broken from the group and has gone over to the bookshop. She’s adjusting the contents of the shelves, moving copies of the titles (which are mostly ghost-written celebrity autobiographies) to give more prominence to her recently published hardback: a biography of Jesus Christ.
I make a cynical remark to those around me, about how the subject of her book will be right at home among the memoirs of C-list celebrities. (Because to me, Jesus Christ is a C-list celebrity.)
But this joke, like the joke about the cheap rail tickets, doesn’t get the reception I’d hoped for.
We troop back into our accommodation, which is housed in the same building. There’s a kind of shared communal area attached to a dormitory.
A dream within a dream
I stop to rest and, soon enough, I start to fall asleep. I lie there, eyes closed, aware enough to let some self-talk circulate in my head, but basically half-asleep.
Except of course I’m already dreaming – I’m sort of day-dreaming within the dream that I’m already having.
I awaken from the dream-within-the-dream, to find that, embarrassingly, I’ve nodded off not in a bed but in a semi-public part of the communal area.
“Oh shit, have I overslept?” I mutter groggily to myself.
An excursion is leaving soon, and I should probably get up and join the group. People will be wondering where I am. They might think me weird for falling asleep in the middle of the day.
A young blonde guy walks up to me as I try to get my bearings. He is American and super-enthusiastic. I don’t know him at all and he’s far too familiar with me. I’m feeling groggy. This is the last thing I need.
“Hey, do you want to go out and explore New York?” he asks.
Not with you, I think to myself as I rub my eyes.
By way of further cementing our acquaintance, he offers an elbow-touch greeting – the kind that people did during the pandemic to avoid shaking hands. I reluctantly reciprocate.
“Man, I just wish we could keep doing this,” he says, referring to the awkward gesture we’ve just completed, which of course has long fallen out of use among the general public.
“Well, keep going. Maybe people will do it,” I murmur without much conviction.
He reiterates the offer to go out into New York and I make a pretence of needing to gather some things before I can commit.
I leave the dormitory on my own.
Street people in ‘Times Square’
Outside I soon find myself walking through Times Square.
Except this bears no relation to the real Times Square. It’s just a long, European-looking high street, populated almost entirely with luxury shops and boutiques. There’s Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Jimmy Choo, Swarovski.
It doesn’t look remotely like New York. It’s more like Burlington Arcade in London. But all the shops are shuttered and the lights of the window displays have been dimmed.
It seems to be very early in the morning. There’s a cool and misty 5am vibe: the only people who are out are those who didn’t go home last night, and the homeless.
In fact, I notice that the thoroughfare is entirely populated by street people. They’ve congregated in clusters of three or four at regular intervals.
None of them are well. Their faces seem to be contorted or completely blank. The more I look, the more I notice that every last one of them suffers from a severe deformity. When I hear their speech, it’s unintelligible.
I begin to marvel at the strange and severe contrast between these unfortunate people and their luxurious surroundings. I start to wonder how they all arrived here in such a high concentration. No one is looking after them.
I feel guilt that I don’t want to interact with any of these people. They seem to be used to shoppers avoiding eye contact.
Only one of them, a woman, really tries to get my attention. I double back on myself to get away from her.
The Secret Gig
As I near the end of the street, ‘Times Square’ starts to feels less like Mayfair and more like the Magnificent Mile; specifically: the concourse of the John Hancock centre.
I reach an arcade-style entrance with lots of brass signage and panelling, which seems to lead into a posh mall. There are no street people here, just conventional shoppers.
I’m amazed to find Costello playing such a tiny restaurant
One of the businesses is a very small branch of Arbuckles – the defunct faux-American diner chain.
I notice a sign at the front that says Elvis Costello is playing a secret gig there. It looks like he’s on tour as the support act for… Sebadoh.
This doesn’t seem quite right, but I’m more amazed to find Costello playing such a tiny restaurant. It’s not even a conventional live music venue.
As I enter Arbuckles, I discover Costello standing on top of a large plinth in the centre of the restaurant, it looks as if a statue or a fountain has been removed to create a makeshift stage for him.
The gig is just getting started. There’s a feeling of elation among the people who have crowded around him, that we’re getting to experience this secret performance. We can say we were there!
Costello is playing without a band. No Attractions or Imposters, it’s just him and his guitar.
He has that elder statesmen look – well-dressed, with grey hair worn slightly longer. He’s using a white plastic device roughly the size of a large iPhone, with red detailing. The gadget apparently work as a microphone and an amplifier, while providing a backing track. It’s a little technological marvel makes it sound like he has a full band supporting him.
In with the wrong crowd
As Costello starts to play I’m about to raise my phone to take a photo. But then I’m like be cool – don’t be one of those people who ruins a special event by recording it all. I see a pretty girl in the crowd turn and look directly at me.
His setlist includes ‘I Don’t Want to go to Chelsea’ and ‘Watching the Detectives’. As the gig goes on, I have a nagging sense that I’m supposed to be elsewhere – that I should leave soon to return to the accommodation and to the larger group. Or that I should find a friend with whom I can share this experience. I leave the restaurant in haste.
But, as I start to put some distance between myself and Arbuckles, it dawns on me that, once again, I’ve somehow managed to leave my bag behind. This time, I have a messenger bag rather than a satchel and I realise I left it on the floor where I was standing at the restaurant.
So, not for the first time, I find myself doubling back to my previous location. I hurry inside to discover not only that the bag has gone but also that the crowd has really thinned out.
The restaurant is much more sparsely populated, and Costello is playing a song that I haven’t heard before. He’s left the plinth so that he can rove around in the audience. But the vibe of the gig has changed and I realise this is the wrong crowd for him.
The audience includes a knot of rowdy young Americans in their early twenties – narcissistic Spring Breakers intent on making a scene. They’re already drunk and have sparked a scuffle among themselves on the floor.
Costello is doing a call-and-response song, where he offers the mic to a crowd member, and they have to say their name is ‘Lane’. But one of the college kids has snatched the microphone off him and is choosing not to play along. They’re disrupting the performance.
Big in an alternate universe
Costello is taking this setback very well. He’s probably played every type of crowd at this point in his career. He looks like a long-suffering teacher stoically dealing with an obnoxious child.
“Alright, man – calm down, calm down, calm down,” he says in a matter-of-fact way. “You don’t have to be cruel.”
The manager of Arbuckles wades into the crowd with an impassive expression and prises the device from the grip of one of the college kids.
As this happens, I begin to wonder if I was wrong about Elvis Costello. The fact that the crowd has thinned out so much makes me wonder if he’s that big of a star. Maybe his work is less well known that I believed.
I turn to my phone, and scroll down to read his bio on Apple Music. It turns out he’s nowhere near as famous as I think he is. I’m in some alternative universe, where he only had a few minor US hits and wasn’t big in the UK at all.
I rediscover my bag in the arcade lobby where the entrance to Arbuckles is situated. I surmise that the people who run the Arbuckles had become sick of all the non-paying foot traffic, and all the hazards that were created by belongings piling up on the restaurant floor. They’ve cleared everyone’s coats and bags out into the lobby in a big heap.
The lobby is large and octagonal, with entrances to the mall and a variety of bars and eateries. As I look at the Arbuckles, I notice a preferable restaurant next door.
I wish Costello would have played at Nando’s, I think to myself. Then I could have gotten some food.
