McNamara’s Band
Tonight’s show was held in a marquee as part of Hay on Wye’s literary festival and sponsored by Shepherds Ice Cream (a local farmer who makes ice cream from sheep’s milk) - Corporate sponsorship knows no bounds. Hay-on-Wye a small village on the Welsh-English border was bleak and cold on June 1st as we waited outside while William Hague (ex-leader of the Conservative party) concluded his talk on his new book about ‘Pitt the Younger’.
Elvis and the Imposters ran on stage to the stains of ‘McNamara’s Band’ (an old Irish folk song) acknowledging one or two ‘familiar’ faces in the front row! Tonight set list was very much geared to a festival audience and this festival as ‘45’ and ‘Everyday I write the Book’ were played back-to-back. It was apparent from an Elvis ‘stalker’ that the majority of the audience weren’t familiar with most of the newer songs, the between song raps or how ‘Alison’ would segue into ‘Suspicious Minds’, which was very refreshing.
Elvis was in a good mood made playful references to this evening support (William Hague) former, current and future career in his introduction to ‘Good Year For The Roses’. ‘Our Little Angel’ was preceded by the Lonely Hearts Club story. ‘Suit Of Lights’ followed the story about Elvis miming on the Hammond organ when playing with his dad and Pete Thomas being told off by a BBC official for ‘playing’ a drum fill on his head during one of their early ‘Top of the Pops’ appearances. Elvis reminded us that ‘Hidden Shame’ was written for Johnny Cash and it the song where the character Abel (from ‘The Delivery Man’) started out. ‘Kinder Murder’ segued into a quieter than normal ‘When I was Cruel No. 2’ which in turn segued into ‘Watching The Detectives’. As at Birmingham a few nights previous, ‘The Delivery Man’ included a few verses from ‘The Butcher’s Boy’. In the intro to ‘Monkey to Man’ Elvis almost forgot where he was as he shouted ‘tonight people of … … … the monkey will speak to you through me’
The audience were on their feet and at the front as they partied to the greatest hits medley before joining in the song-a-long version of ‘You Really Got A Hold on Me’. After ‘The Scarlet Tide’ that was listened in reverence silence, it was ‘thank you & good night’ and back into the big yellow tour bus and onwards to warmer weather.