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As we waited for Elvis and The Imposters to go on. I noticed some issue on stage. To get into some guitar geek stuff, Elvis plays through THREE guitar amplifiers. You need a splitter box to go from one guitar input into three amps. And before his guitar signal even gets to the amps, he has a (pretty big) pedal board at his feet. These stomp-boxes might be used for reverb, delay, and other distortion effects. So, they rolled out Elvis’ amps on a platform, but his tech was obviously having a problem with the pedal board. They futzed around for about fifteen minutes, then took the pedal board off stage, then brought it back on, still not working. When they finally started the show about 20 minutes late, the pedal board was STILL not working, and was off stage, no doubt receiving the guitar tech version of CPR. Elvis simply plugged his Fender Jazzmaster straight into the three amps (no pedals) and they were off. I was imagining him throwing a tantrum but he was fine.
They kicked off with early notables: ‘Pump It Up,’ then ‘Mystery Dance,’ then ‘Less Than Zero.’ The band was hot and Elvis sounded great. Again, I’ve been reading a lot of grousing on the Internet about the set lists for these Blondie shows being ‘uninspired.’ I’m not even sure what I want to say about that. Elvis has well over twenty LP’s, so you might not get to hear your favorite Elvis tune. Having seen E.C. over fifty times, I could do without hearing ‘Alison’ again, but it’s always a privilege to see the man and his band. I’ve seen him pissed off, but never, ever going through the motions. There was a stirring version of ‘Clubland,’ a rocking ‘Accidents Will Happen,’ and a super cool “Green Shirt,’ on which ‘The Professor,’ keyboardist Steve Nieve, really sounded great.
Elvis mentioned that the setlist had gone out the window, and tore into ‘Waiting For The End Of The World’ followed by a wonderful ‘Beyond Belief,’ both songs sent to the stratosphere by backing vocalists Kitten Kuroi and Brianna Lee. These two singers have been mainstays on the last few tours, and they are sparkling highlights on the show. They were both stellar throughout.
Elvis played one ‘new’ song, ‘A Face In The Crowd,’ on the piano. This has been played on the last couple of tours I’ve seen, but this was the first time the whole band played on the tune. While the poor guitar tech brought out the (still not working) pedalboard after 45 minutes offstage, Elvis waved him off and explained they would get back to the ‘“New Wave Hits” after this one, and he said he is working on a Broadway show based on the 1957 movie and story of Lonesome Rhodes This was followed by ‘American Gangster Time,’ a song from Momofuko that E.C. only plays in D.C. I wonder why... “Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter’ was the only song from Look Now played, followed by a surprisingly great ‘So Like Candy’ from Mighty Like A Rose, adding snippets of Linda Ronstadt’s ‘You’re No Good’ at the end. Then there were rollicking versions of Get Happy’s ‘I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down’ and ‘High Fidelity,’ both nailed by bassist Davey Faragher and the amazing drums of Pete Thomas (this whole night was a drum clinic). The set ended with ‘Everyday I Write The Book’ and ‘Alison,’ the ladies tearing it up on the vocals as Elvis started to get a little hoarse.
The encore was all-Nick Lowe material, a bashing version of ‘Heart Of The City’ followed by a heart-rending ‘(What's So Funny Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding.’ This was set to images of Elvis’ relatives from the Great War (see tinyurl.com/zubpoppies for review of WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old), as well as images of some boys KIA, and had a pretty strong political bent. The crowd loved it, it was a marvelous show, always great to see a performer and band at the top of their game. Elvis is still King.
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