Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Elvis & Emmy Lou

Former KJHK jock and Shawnee Mission North graduate Joe Kellogg ('84) saw Elvis Costello and Emmy Lou Harris last week in Chicago and posted this synopsis:
Gigantic purple velvet curtains as a back drop.

No opening band, 8pm Elvis and the band walk out and with no introduction or chat and immediately jump into 30 minutes of all “Attractions” era songs.

8:30 Emmy Lou comes out and they sing together for and hour, not all her stuff, not his stuff . . . I think they even did a Hank Sr. song! If Elvis wasn’t a part of one of her songs vocally he was playing.

At one point Elvis announces they’re really going to get into the country music and rattles something like, “not the country music you’re thinking of, not like that Toby Keith, you know I saw a picture of Toby Keith the other day holding a martini glass and I thought . . . . that’s so un-American” I loved that quote.

9:30 Emmy Lou leaves and Elvis kicks it up a notch with another 30 minutes of more recent songs.

10:00 They leave (but barely for a minute) before coming out for what turned out to be an hour long encore . . . an encore that included Emmy Lou. She sang with Elvis on all his songs and they sounded great together doing his stuff. It looked like they were having a blast doing Pump It Up! He was even doing schlock rock type guitar moves. They also sang the Stones’ Wild Horses which sounded cool. They ended with a war protest song . . . somber but a cool way to end.

All said and done Elvis was on stage non-stop playing from 8 till 11, never taking off his bright blue jacket or tie. Definitely got the $15 worth.

Thanks Joe!

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