Steve Nieve, One of Rock's Great Pianists, Plays for a Few Dozen Fans in a Garden

Steve Nieve, performing on a pond in Golden Gate Park. [photo credit: Paul Iorio]

"It's like a dream," said the woman next to me.

And it was, except it was quite real.

Steve Nieve, one of rock's greatest pianists, the musical right-hand of Elvis Costello, playing an unamplified piano in the middle of a pastoral paradise, performed works by Costello, Bacharach and others for nearly ninety minutes for a few dozen thrilled fans last Saturday morning.

Nieve's appearance happened at San Francisco's Botanical Garden, in Golden Gate Park, as part of its ongoing concert series.

It was an unpublicized event, not even listed in the Garden's brochure about the series. Nobody at the admissions gate knew where he was playing, or even that he was playing. In fact, staffers didn't even recognize his name.

There were no signs and no online announcement of his appearance. And it was anyone's guess as to which of the twelve pianos in twelve separate, far-flung locations in the park he would appear at. Plus, he was playing a full hour before all other scheduled performances.

If the Botanical Garden had wanted to hide his gig from the public, they could not have done a better job. (I found out about it only because Nieve himself mentioned it on his personal Facebook page.)

Hence, the extremely low turn-out. I mean, he played Costello's "Shipbuilding," his second song (shortly after eleven in the morning), to a grand total of two people, including me and the guy from the Garden who had driven Nieve to the site on a sort of golf cart. So, I was allowed to stroll right up to the piano and shoot pictures as he played. (As the crowd gradually grew to around thirty-five, I was asked by a staffer to watch from a slightly farther distance!)

But those who made it to the Moon Viewing Garden - whose centerpiece is a small pond partly-covered by a wooden deck on which Nieve played - were in for a treat.

And he didn't just tickle the ebonies and ivories for a few minutes and leave. This was a meaty, nearly 90-minute set of two dozen works by Costello, Bacharach and probably some classical composers of whom I'm unaware.

This was a chance to see a modern-day Nicky Hopkins at work and close up.

Nieve commanded the park like a thunderbolt when he lit into a Beethoven-esque version of Costello's "Shot With His Own Gun," the showstopper of the set.

His re-imagining of "Oliver's Army" sounded like a fresh early spring day in the woods.

"Alison" and "Accidents Will Happen" were reshaped as near-minuets. He brought out marvelous dissonance in "Sulky Girl" -- and "Town Cryer" sometimes felt like cascading water in a mountain stream.

His performance was almost a description of the bucolic setting itself.

His piano-playing was, by turns, stately, elegant, regal, aggressively innovative and sometimes just beautiful. At times, he recalled Hopkins, Marvin Hamlisch, Dave Brubeck and Randy Newman, with echoes of Bach and George Gershwin.

At show's end, he turned to my side of the audience for requests and I blurted out, "Watch Your Step," which features one of the most inspired piano breaks in the Costello oeuvre. (Frankly, I wish I had been able to request two more: "Clubland" and the Rolling Stones' "She's a Rainbow.")

And sure enough, Nieve was kind enough to end with that track, playing it to perfection and doing a marvelous variation on the break.

Like a dream, as the woman said.

[The Sunset Piano concert series, a celebration of the San Francisco Botanical Garden's 75th anniversary, continues through July 20th at the Garden. Details at www.sfbotanicalgarden.org.]

Nieve, usually somber, smiling. [photo credit: Paul Iorio]

A pastoral, unamplified Saturday morning in San Francisco. [photo credit: Paul Iorio]