7

MONDAY

A mortgage? Kids? A car that costs more than a year of college? All of these things suggest that you may have entered the long, slow decline of your middle years—but not one constitutes proof. The bitter truth is undeniable, however, when the maker of the angst-ridden soundtrack to your high-school years shows up at that bastion of middle-class respectability, Wolf Trap. I will face this fact tonight, when Elvis Costello takes the stage. Elvis, one of the strongest and most prolific performers of the smooth-punk ’80s, has been going through his own personal midlife crisis these past few years, releasing a series of ghastly experimentations that bottomed out with Painted From Memory, 1998’s unlistenable collaboration with Burt Bacharach. The good news is that Elvis is back—if not quite at his late-’70s intensity, then at least in a respectable groove. He’s always produced songs of melodic complexity with lyrics that show off the impressive vocabulary of a British state-school education. Add 25 or so years, and perhaps he fits in at Wolf Trap after all. Elvis Costello and the Imposters play with Chris Robinson at 8 p.m. at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center, 1551 Trap Road, Vienna. $25-$36. (703) 218-6500. (Jandos Rothstein)