Red Elvises at the Blue Cafe
July 30 and August 27, 2000 By Kayt

On July 30th, I was surprised and happy to see that there were a lot more people at the Blue Cafe than had shown up for previous Red Elvises shows there. We arrived at our usual time, more or less, and managed to snag one of the few remaining vacant tables. One of the cool things about this venue is that the band can be seen very well from just about any table in the place...that, and the food is pretty good too. And the beer...well, how can you go wrong with beer?

The show began and dancing started immediately; the Elvises rocked and there were smiles everywhere. Loud and groovy, just the way we like it...they played the usual mixture of older and newer songs, and we got the added treat of Avi coming out from behind the drums to sing not only "Play That Funky Music" but also "Mustang Sally," which melted down the house. Oleg played drums terrifically for those two songs and Igor and Zhenya were wonderful as always...all of them together providing fun and joy and your typical good-time-rock-and-roll Red Elvises show.

By contrast, the August 27th show at the same place was a rather different evening. The crowd was smaller for some reason, at least at first. We got there early and ordered food and beer and listened to the opening band, who were very good. Soon we began to see members of the band we were there for, three of them...it was trio time again as Zhenya was notable by his absence. Let me say here that I absolutely love these guys, and they played their hearts out to give us a good show...but although most of the songs still sounded great, a certain lead guitarist's shoes are hard to fill and he was very much missed.

The show began with "It's a Wonderful Night to Fall in Love." The dance floor didn't fill up as fast this time, but before long people started venturing out there to shake their pelvises. Several songs later they ripped into a very rock 'n roll version of my favorite song on the Shake Your Pelvis CD, "Colors of Rainbow," which really did my heart good. In no particular order (writing down songs as they're played interferes with my beer-drinking!), they did "Everybody Disco," "Sad Cowboy Song," "200 Flying Girls," "Rocketman" a brand new song called "Space Cowboy" which was great, and of course many others. Oleg thrilled us with the too-seldom-heard "Telephone Call From Istanbul," and Igor worked his magic on those two old favorite girl-name songs, "Harriet" and "Suzanna." The first set wrapped up with the standard "I Wanna See You Belly Dance." Then we sold some CDs and had a nice chat with Avi at the merchandise table.

For the second set they enlisted the help of a nice guy from another band on lead guitar and Avi kept everyone dancing with "Play That Funky Music." The set was a mixed bag of Red Elvises songs, including "Please Don't Tell Me What I Did Last Night," and a cover or two. Unfortunately, we had to leave during this set because my roomie started feeling ill...but all the way to the car we heard a Red Elvised version of "Johnny Be Good" that sounded like a lot of fun.

Another Rusty's review will be coming up next issue. Everyone, check the Tour Dates page for a show near you and go, enjoy and dance! I'm sure there are some interesting times ahead for Red Elvises.