Review of concert from 2002-04-15: Amsterdam, Paradiso Club - with Imposters
- Joyce Slavik

 

First of all :-D. Just a quickie before a brief nap and heading to the
airport. Great show tonight. It seemed short but did go for 90 minutes. The
lister crowd headed up the line in the cold for a two-hour wait. We hardly
needed to since most people seemed to rush for the seats up in the balcony.
Amsterdam played for about 1/2 hours and Elvis started a few minutes before
8:30pm. Looked good - all black, shirt untucked. I liked his shoe boots. I
think Alfonso will be typing up the setlist so I'll give my highlights. The
band sounded very tight on the old stuff. Davey Faragher on bass - great! I
love bass and he was doing some good work along with the occasional backup vocal. Steve sounded good but a bit restrained. Where I was standing
(directly in spittle range underneath Elvis) I couldn't see him at all.
Just the occasional flopping of wild hair. I could see Pete directly behind
Elvis but he wasn't looking around too much. He was very focused on what
Elvis was doing. Funnily enough, the pre show music was mainly the *other*
Elvis. funny. Alfonso, Robin (Alfonso's wife), Nick, Wouter and I were up
front. Highlights in a nutshell: End of the World, 15 Petals, When I was
cruel 2, I hope you're happy now, Doll Revolution, You Belong to Me. Big
huge highlights: Episode of Blonde (I love this song anyway but it was
truly outstanding live. Elvis seemed to be having sooo much fun with it), I
Want You (a wonderful version). I really liked the live version of 15
Petals. He started out by saying he was about to sing a love song, sang a
little bit of "She" and then said something like "I'm kidding. I'm through
with that shit!" Big applause. Very funny. 45 was good but he screwed up
the lyrics and combined perhaps 3 verses into a few lines. I always enjoy
seeing how he works his way out of that sort of thing ;-). Dust 2 and Dust
were combined and were listed on the setlist as "Dust 2 dust". Funny. The
setlist was all typed and had EC's guitar listed next to each song. My
Little Blue Window were played at the soundcheck (shades of listening at
the door with Patsy and dweil at the Tabernacle in Atlanta ;-)) but we
didn't get that today. Another hightlight: Lipstick Vogue. We were dancing
about but the couple next to us kept giving us stoic looks. I think Elvis
preferred people to be having fun! Spooky Girlfriend was good but a little
fast I thought. WIWC (not listed as 2 on the setlist) was weird because
Elvis was playing with his new techno gadgety toy and the band didn't seem
to know what to do. Doll Revolution went over fantastic live. Pump It Up --
good but yawn. Guitars mentioned on setlist: Jazzmaster, Magnatone (I
think this is the one that still has the pricetag), Gibson 160E, Baritone.
I know nothing about guitars so there ya have it. I think he quit after one
hour and came back for two encores. The crowd was insane for a long time in
between encores (aforementioned stoic couple didn't appreciate my loud wolf
whistles but then I didn't appreciate them smoking). It was a great
rocking show. I'm expecting tomorrow to be pretty similar with probably a
different set of encores. Please don't take out Episode of Blonde
though! Elvis did his usually scoping out and grinning at the audience. I
just love that :-). Great hanging out with Alfonso, Robin and Nick.