ELVIS
FTD REVIEWS
Reviewed by:
Crister Berge
ELVIS AT THE INTERNATIONAL (FTD #20 – 2002)
”My wish came true…”
Finally, a 1969 concert is released by FTD. I’ve been waiting for three years for this, so thank you, Ernst! It’s the midnight show from August 23 and we’re treated to what I’m guessing was one of the longest shows from this Vegas stint; Elvis is at work for no less than 79 minutes! [As compared to the show on CD #1 (Aug. 24) on the box set Live In Las Vegas that lasted 62 minutes.] Elvis plays the guitar in quite a few numbers, and as always it’s out of tune. And this was a time when The King still enjoyed singing old rockers like ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and ’Hound Dog’, just listen to him kick-start the latter: “YOU AIN’T NUTHIN’ BUT A HOUND DOG!” Great stuff.
Elvis is extremely talkative and in a rambunctious mood. He’s having a hard time controlling his laughter, and it’s just wonderful to hear him in such great spirit. Also, he is not as hoarse as on other shows from this period. Only ’Reconsider Baby’ and ’What’d I Say’ are previously released. When you play the CD you’ll notice that tracks four and five are actually encoded as one track, and as a consequence the track numbers are out of sync. I also noticed that Flaming Star’s senior writer Eivind Haug gets a ”special thanks” inside the digi-pak – what a shame they misspelled his first name!
Track number four is entitled ”Welcome” – oh, wow, an unknown song that we’ve never heard before? Nah, it’s just Elvis greeting the audience. They should have named it ”Elvis welcomes the audience”, as on Live In Las Vegas. As always, Elvis says this is his first live appearance in ”nine years”. Why didn’t anyone correct him – it was EIGHT years, for God’s sake! His next statement reveals his self-loathing: “Before the evening is over I will have made a complete fool of myself. I hope you get a kick out of watching it.” The audience is informed that the stuff Elvis is drinking is Gatorade, a sports drink that was new at that time. Says Elvis, “It’s supposed to work twelve times faster than water… looks like it’s already been used to me…”. The monologue leading up to the “message song” ’Hound Dog’ is really weird, and a little dirty, even. Sadly, the performance of ’Memories’ is destroyed as Elvis is busy kissing dames throughout the song.
Track eleven (which has several tape edits) is Elvis reminiscing about his career for nine minutes. Imagine that he held this ”speech” 57 times! On this occasion, his tongue slips several times. When he’s supposed to say, “I went to make a record”, it comes out, “to make a girl”. “Hit record” becomes “rit hecord” and “hotel” is “hochell”. Here are a few excerpts from the monologue. His line of work before entering the world of showbiz: “I was training to be an electrician and I got wired the wrong way.” He gets his first real laugh when he impersonates Ed Sullivan, and when telling the story about the basset hound he was singing to at the Steve Allen Show, he says the dog was ”in heat”, which I recently learned means ”ready to mate”!
As Elvis talks about his pre-army Hollywood films, he cannot hide his disappointment with the Colonel’s decision to let Elvis be a regular G.I. Joe. Elvis says he was “living it up”: “I’m a movie star! I’m a sonnofabitch! Eatin’ hamburgers and drinkin’ Pepsi-Colas. Then I got drafted… and shafted”. According to the Myth, Elvis was happy to serve his country and enjoyed the army. Not so. We now know that Elvis hated the service and that he never forgave the ol’ man for depriving him of two years of his life. A glimpse of the sobering army life: “The guys in the army must get awfully lonely, ‘cuz they called each other ‘mother’ a lot.” An unknown movie is also presented: “I did a black and white 8 millimeter underground film called ‘Up Your Nose’. It’s not out yet, they’re still editing the rough parts.” Finally, it’s interesting to hear Elvis tell the “smitty on a hearse” joke, as it was used by controversial author Albert Goldman as an example of Elvis’ sense of humour. The thing I enjoyed the most was Elvis’ aural emulation of a “goonie bird” – absolutely hilarious! He finishes by saying, “Hope I didn’t bore you too much.” Certainly not, Elvis!
Note the lyric change in Del Shannon’s ’Runaway’: instead of ”the things we’ve done together”, Elvis sings ”the times we had together”. I will not comment on ’Reconsider Baby’, but refer to my review of Collectors Gold, which you’ll find at: http://home.online.no/~ov-egela/collectorsgold.html. In ’Yesterday’, Elvis alters the line “I’m not half the man” by replacing “man” with “stud”. The song is elevated by exquisite piano playing by Larry Muhoberac. Funny that Elvis never got Larry’s last name right… ’Suspicious Minds’ is pretty faithful to the studio original; Burton tries real hard to copy Reggie Young’s guitar sound and style (the opening riff). It’s a fantastic performance but surely way too long at eight minutes? Elvis really wanted to plug his new single…. ’What’d I Say’ is the version from Collectors Gold. I wonder if Elvis left the stage during James’ lengthy solo? And why the Hell isn’t JB’s guitar brought to the front??!
Anyhows, a fine show it is, Elvis is in top form and lots of rock & roll. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
On a scale from 1 to 5, I give it 4.5.
Crister Berge, Sweden 2003.
E-mail: jon.burrows@lycos.com
