By David Menconi
dmenconi@newsobserver.com

DURHAM -- Over the decades, I've been happy to follow Elvis Costello's many detours down tangential musical byways, from country stringbands to classical string quartets. I've admired, respected and enjoyed most all of it. But I must confess that what still gets my heart beating fast are the rage-steeped poison-pen songs from his old revenge-and-guilt period -- especially when played by a loud-and-fast quartet like the one he brought to Durham Performing Arts Center Sunday night.

It was a spectacular show with three-dozen songs clocking in at just under three hours, played by a band featuring longtime Costello veterans Steve Nieve on keyboards and drummer Pete Thomas bashing away. The set drew heavily from the old days, too, starting with "I Hope You're Happy Now" and ending with an encore including "Clubland," "Pump It Up" and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding."

Yet it was hardly one-dimensional. Instrumentation featured everything from Theremin to ukulele, and the wide-ranging song selection included covers by the likes of Buck Owens, Chuck Berry and Booker T & the MG's. As always, Costello offered a veritable musicology lesson about his own catalog. At one point as the band vamped on Booker T's soul instrumental "Time Is Tight," Costello noted that he had turned that riff into his 1980 song "Temptation" -- and sang it to demonstrate.

Sunday's show was vastly different from Costello's previous Triangle appearance in 2009, when he brought a six-piece country band to Cary's Booth Amphitheatre and played an Englishman's take on Americana. This band was stripped down and so was Costello, who appeared slimmer and fitter than he's been in years.

This was the final U.S. date of Costello's tour featuring "The Spectacular Spinning Songbook," a great onstage gimmick. The setup included a go-go dancer, a television showing static ("As you can see, we keep the TV tuned to Fox News at all times," Costello quipped), a high striker and a huge wheel of fortune with several dozen song titles, topics and themes.

Four songs in, Costello put on a black tophat, took up a cane and went into a carney rap as the band played Blood Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel." That was the setup for audience members to come onstage, spin the wheel and determine the next song.

You'd think that might result in a set with no sense of flow or transition. But it was hugely entertaining, in part because of the canny structure of each spin suggesting groupings of songs. One audience member (who brought along two vinyl albums he made Costello sign onstage) spun to "Happy," and the band obliged with three songs from Costello's "Get Happy" album.

Mostly, though, the format worked because Costello is a terrific and witty showman, and he kept things moving right along. His song introductions were as entertaining as the performances, especially one story about meeting Johnny Cash and another about playing "No Particular Place to Go" for an audience including Berry, Keith Richards and Leonard Cohen.

One audience spinner was a young woman in a red dress that appeared to be spray-painted on, and she did an impressive dance routine in the go-go cage along to "Veronica." Another young woman requested "My Funny Valentine," which appeared to just melt her; she sat onstage quietly weeping as Costello played it.

Costello was the band's sole guitarist Sunday night, and he put in plenty of six-string heroics. Nieve and Thomas also played well, although the keyboards didn't seem loud enough in the mix for much of the show. And bassist Davey Faragher's backup vocals were on-point and just-right throughout.

Even with the spinning-wheel format, few of Costello's standards went missing. By the end of the night, he'd included "Alison," "Watching the Detectives" and "Everyday I Write the Book." He made 'em all sound brand new.

Menconi: 919-829-4759 or blogs.newsobserver.com/beat

The funeral of Whitney Houston will be widely televised on Saturday, and also streamed online.

BET, Centric, CNN, E!, Headline News and MSNBC are among the networks planning to air the funeral live from the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J.

BET and Centric will have commentary from April Woodard and Lola Oguinake starting at 11:30 a.m.  CNN will have coverage from anchors Piers Morgan, Soledad O'Brien, and Don Lemon beginning at 11. CNN will also provide a digital stream for web and mobile devices from 11:30 to 2 p.m.

MSNBC and Headline News will begin coverage at 11 and E! will cover at 11:30.

Fox News Channel will also stream the funeral live on its website and they'll air updates from the service periodically between noon and 2 p.m. Anchors Uma Pemmaraju and Rick Folbaum will cover.

Also, a press release from TV One says they will air the funeral beginning at noon ET.

Note: As of Friday afternoon -- times and anchors could change.

It wouldn't be much of a stretch to describe Bret Baier's rise at Fox News as meteoric. In just about 10 years, the Atlanta native went from starting the network’s Atlanta bureau (which consisted of a cell phone and fax machine in his apartment), to lead news anchor, drawing 2 million viewers each night. What many of those viewers may not know is that Baier credits part of that rapid rise to his two-year gig at WRAL in the 1990s.

Baier, anchor of the one-hour "Special Report with Bret Baier" (6 p.m., Monday-Friday), was hired away from WRAL in 1998 by Fox News to start the Atlanta bureau, and then moved to Washington in 2001 as their Pentagon correspondent. He became the White House Correspondent in 2006 and replaced Brit Hume as the Fox News nightly anchor in January 2009.

Baier will moderate the South Carolina GOP debate in Myrtle Beach on Monday (9 p.m., Fox News Channel).

We spoke to Baier by phone on Friday and asked him about his time at WRAL, his family in D.C., and how he plans to handle the big South Carolina debate. Below are excerpts from that conversation.

Wake County school board candidate Heather Losurdo unveiled a new political ad today that implies that re-electing incumbent Kevin Hill will lead to more "forced busing" and children going to school in the darkness.

The ad, which will appear on television starting Thursday, is titled "From Forced Busing to Parental Choice." It opens with a picture of students boarding a bus in the dark above the caption "Raleigh NC 6:50 AM."

Narrator: “For years, Wake County children have been bused many miles from their homes. Now there is a new bi-partisan plan that will stop forced busing and enhance parental choice. But will the new board keep the momentum going or will they lose the opportunity for a bold new beginning?"

UPDATE

If you're having problems viewing the video, click here.

In a move likely to fuel conspiracy theorists even more, Wake County school board member John Tedesco is slated to speak at another Tea Party Tax Day Rally.

Tedesco is among the list of speakers scheduled to talk at Tax Day Tea Party 2011 on April 15 in downtown Greensboro, according to YES! Weekly, a weekly in the Triad area. The event is being organized by Conservatives for Guilford County and they will be joined by groups such as AnyStreet NC, NC Right to Life, the Civitas Institute, the John Locke Foundation and the National Rifle Association.

Conservatives for Guilford is listed as a member group of the state chapter of Tea Party Patriots.

Wake County Schools Superintendent Tony Tata did a national media appearance this weekend that is about as far away from Fox News as you can get.

Tata was interviewed on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition Sunday" to talk about the school diversity fight in Wake. This is probably less annoying to critics of Tata who had railed against the appearances he had made on Fox News before he started in Wake.

During the interview, Tata defended the school board's elimination of the diversity policy while saying that the school system won't resegregate.

Cash Michaels is speculating on why the Wake County school board had a "come to Jesus moment" last week in voting to cooperate with AdvancED in the accreditation review.

In a blog post Sunday, Michaels, the chief editor/reporter of The Carolinian, says the school board decided "a 'no mas' surrender stance was more politically appropriate" following the recent wave of bad national publicity. Michaels is both a harsh critic of the Republican school board majority and an advocate of the old diversity policy.

In his analysis, Michaels links the AdvancED decision with this fall's school board elections and the drawing of new boundaries for board seats. He says it "may be just a tactic to slow things down, cool things off, and try to take the thus far intense focus off the board." 

Wake County school board member John Tedesco was on the Fox Business Network today defending the elimination of the diversity policy amid all the recent national media attention.

In this interview on "The Wiilis Report," Tedesco attacked the old diversity policy on financial and academic grounds. Tedesco, who was the only person interviewed for the report, also expressed his disappointment at U.S. Secretary Education Arne Duncan's recent criticism of Wake.

Tedesco also criticized last week's Washington Post article on Wake and denied that the school changes in the district were the result of a Tea Party takeover.

The big three networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- will interrupt regular programming tonight to broadcast the remarks of President Obama at this evening's memorial service in Tucson.

The remarks are expected to come sometime between 8pm - 9pm and will likely last less than 10 minutes.

CBS will air repeats of "Big Bang Theory" and "Rules of Engagement" from 8 to 9 and interrupt one of those. "Live to Dance" is moved to 9pm and a new episode of "The Defenders" will air at 10pm.

The majority of new Wake County Superintendent Anthony Tata's questions at a Friday news conference focused on his view of school diversity and his time as a political pundit.

As noted in today's article, Tata faced some pretty pointed questions as he asserted he's his own man. He praised neighborhood schools and questioned how well low-income students were helped by Wake's diversity policy.

Initially, Tata said he's still getting more information on the role of diversity in Wake's schools. But that didn't stop him from getting multiple questions to get him to flesh out his views.