Given Nick Lowe’s substantial backlog of old favorites, the announcement early in his Keswick Theatre show Sunday night that he’d be devoting a substantial chunk of the evening to showcasing songs from his latest album, The Old Magic, could have been cause for concern. But not to worry, Lowe assured the crowd: “If you cut me open, you’ll find one word written through me like a stick of rock — quality entertainment.”
Like the hard candy to which he likened himself, Lowe’s music is sugary but sharp, sweet to the taste but with edges that can wound. Over the course of his last five albums, beginning with 1994’s The Impossible Bird, Lowe has toned down the caustic wit of his early albums, replacing their shiny pop with a more relaxed sound whose reference points range backward from the early days of rock-and-roll to the pasted-on cheer of vaudeville and music hall. With his right hand crisply strumming an acoustic guitar and his left leg pumping to the beat, Lowe transformed “Without Love,” from his 1979 album Labour of Lust, from a honky-tonk pastiche into something more closely resembling the prerock skiffle that inspired the Beatles.
