Elvis Costello always seems to be more aware of his environment than your average rock star. At Taste of Minnesota on Saturday, he knew he was in St. Paul (not Minneapolis) and he was fully aware of the makeover at Taste of Minnesota.

“I bet you were disappointed we weren’t a heavy metal group,” he said before playing his encore. “Sorry. We’re all wearing leather shorts underneath.”

Looking noticeably thinner, the Rock Hall of Famer with the oversized glasses and long sideburns was the lone non-hard rocker to headline this year’s revamped Taste (Bret Michaels is Sunday, Staind and Judas Priest preceded Costello.)  To be honest, Elvis was less intense than usual as he and the Imposters played 95 minutes of mostly familiar songs: Pump It Up, Every Day I Write the Book, Accidents Will Happen, Chelsea, Man Out of Time, Clubland, Monkey to Man, Watching the Detectives.

He had some fun by throwing Van Morrison’s “Jackie Wilson Said” into “Radio Sweetheart” and taking the encore of “Alison” into “Tracks of My Tears,” “Tears of a Clown” and “Suspicious Minds.” And, of course, he rocked out on “Peace Love and Understanding” to close the show.

The highlight, though, was the silly  ”Sulphur to Sugarcane,” from his new country-tinged album, “Secret, Profane & Sugarcane.” Costello introduced it as being about a no-good guy running for office against Sarah Palin. He said, “We like to call this ‘You Can Call Me Al.’ ” It was a colorful travelogue in which he rhymes Ypsilanti and panties and managed to ad lib a line about St. Paul.

Not unexpectedly, Elvis had issues with the Taste set up. With more than half of the “gold circle” reserved seats empty, he kept urging standing concertgoers to climb the fence to get to the seats in front of the stage. The Angry Old Elvis would have led the charge, this time he just led the band.

Last night’s Roots gig was by no means the best show I’ve seen by the Philly hip-hop crew, but it was definitely the most energetic and insane. It’s as if they were a hyperactive kid who’s been stuck in a car for four hours — or the “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” studio for four months.

I missed the first 45 minutes of the two-hour-plus blowout (filing a news story on Taste of MN), but they reportedly played some new tracks early on. After that, it was just one long marathon of funk. My god, they just kept playing and playing, as if proving there’s no such thing as a commercial break in the road life of the Roots. Songs didn’t really start or end, they just sort of popped up sporadically, including ”Step Into the Realm,” “You Got Me” and “The Next Movement.” Granted, they’ve always been a jam band, but this took it to a whole other level. They also threw in more cover-song snippets than usual, from a much wider range, including “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” George Thorogood’s “Who Do You Love?” (just kidding… RIP Bo Diddley) and “Never Can Say Goodbye” (and RIP MJ). I’d say the jukebox format definitely showed the influence of their Fallon gig. One other sign of their new TV stardom: More frat-boys at the sold-out show. Ah well, welcome aboard, and hold on tight! 

While watching the Roots tear through “Immigrant Song” at First Ave last night, I got a cryptic email on my crackberry from City on the Make singer Mike Massey saying simply that their CD-release party at the 400 Bar tonight had been “cancelled.” No explanation. That, coupled with the fact that no shows are listed on the club’s website, of course suggests that the historic West Bank venue has gone dark.

Let’s not jump to conclusions yet, though. When I last spoke to Tom Sullivan a couple weeks ago (who has run the place with his brother Bill for the past decade), he hinted that there would be a “new partnership” deal at the club he would be announcing soon. There was no air of finality or regret about it. I know that the bar was late paying some of its taxes to the state last year, and it incurred a hefty construction bill when its exterior wall had to be remade following a modest crumble. But that’s the bar biz. There are a few touring shows listed there for the coming months on Pollstar, including Scott H. Biram on July 23, Slobberbone (doing a brief reunion tour) Aug. 15 and Joe Pernice on Sept. 12. Here’s hoping we’ll indeed see them there. Stay tuned.

And some good news for now: City on the Make, one of many great bands (and probably the best) that the 400 has fostered of late, was able to move its show tonight a few blocks away to the Bedlam Theatre (9 p.m., $7). Massey said of the quick switcheroo, “I’m amazed sometimes that there are good people like the Bedlam who go out of their way to make special things happen.”

Dave Pirner took his son to work on Thursday night at the Minnesota Zoo and that helped transform a less-than-stellar Soul Asylum concert into a memorable one.

Wearing heavy-duty headphones (like the ones worn by people who guide airplanes on tarmacs), Eli Pirner, 5, stood onstage in front of bassist Tommy Stinson’s amp during the opening “Somebody to Shove.” By the end of the night, Eli was at the mic, lowered to his level, to sing “Stand Up and Be Strong,” face to face with his kneeling dad. Bet your kid didn’t get to do something that cool when you took him or her to work.

Afterward, Danny Murphy told the sellout crowd: “Eli rocks! That was good man. Just like the singer, it took Eli a little while to get wound up and then he was into it.”

That would be a fairly accurate review of Dad’s 95-minute performance at the Zoo. With Eli sitting in the wings, Pirner perked up during the seventh song, “Without a Trace,” which he dedicated to the band’s late bassist Karl Mueller. “String of Pearls” earned big cheers from the crowd, which may have been the tamest crowd at the zoo this year. “Let’s All Kill Each Other” was perfectly punk tongue in cheek.

The big winner came later: the invigorating “Bittersweetheart,” during which Pirner did a little shimmey. He was way into “Sometime to Return” and the closing “Stranger,” during which he was demonstrative and emotional. It was maybe the only song he’d played all night without a guitar. By then, Eli had scampered off stage into Mom’s arms. 

Here is a set list (though I missed a couple of songs when I went to the restroom where there was a long line):

1. Somebody To Shove 2. All Is Well 3. Easy Street 4. Misery 5. Lately 6. Black Gold 7. Without a Trace 8. String of Pearls 9. Let’s All Kill Each Other 10. Just Like Anyone 11. Cartoon (?) 12. ?? 13. Black Star 14. Never Really Been 15. Runaway Train 16. Watcha Need 17. Bittersweetheart 18. Sometime to Return 19. Stand Up and Be Strong   ENCORE 20. Closer to the Stars 21. ??   22. Stranger

Here’s a postcard from the 757s, promoting their “opening” gig for Judas Priest at Taste of MN on Friday (they go on at 12:30 p.m.; Priest is at 8:30; works for me). Click to enlarge. Feel free to frame.

You can read a thousand other reviews of “Wilco (the Album),” which came out yesterday, but a lot of the write-ups miss what I think is the most striking thing about the record: It’s by far the band’s most accessible disc since “Summerteeth.” And I, for one, don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.

My favorite tracks are the ones I could easily hear getting radioplay, and I’m not just talking on NPR stations: “You and I,” featuring Feist on guest vocals, is a loose and pretty pop duet that’s sweet enough for Top 40 play, or at least Cities 97 (but not too sweet for old cynics like me to love it). Even better in the ballad department is “Country Disappeared,” a slow but gushing piano groove that shows Tweedy’s old-soul influence. Meanwhile, fans of the “A.M.”-style, straight-up, melodic Wilco rock sound should dig the cheeky rockers “Sonny Feeling” and “Wilco (the Song).”

What most of the reviews seem to agree on, as do I, is that this is also the band’s least ambitious disc since… maybe forever. Wilco’s not keeping up with Radiohead as envelope-pushing art-rock-gods, in other words. Again, not a bad thing. I’d kill to hear Radiohead make a more straight-up album like this again (as much as I loved “In Rainbows”). But there’s a little of that ”Yankee Hotel”/”A Ghost” innovation here. The fragmented and harried “Bull Black Nova” features guitarist Nels Cline at his freakiest, while “One Wing” is a bleak and brilliant epic.

As far as Wilco’s amazing live shows go, those latter two tunes are the ones I most look forward to hearing up at the 10,000 Lakes fest on July 23. But I’d also like to hear some of these songs on my preteen niece’s little pink boombox or her mom’s mini-SUV radio.