Red Elvises Home Again!
Redondo Beach, CA – July 28, 2001 By Kayt

The Russians are back and playing at the beach, their adopted natural habitat! The Redondo Beach pier is always a fun place to see Red Elvises play, and it’s not terribly far from L.A. itself, just a little south of LAX airport. But I felt like I was on a mini Red Road Trip battling the traffic down there! If you’re ever in L.A. and want to head south on the 405 freeway on a Saturday afternoon, my advice is to find a better route, even though of course it was well worth the mind-exploding torturous crawl, as I knew it would be!

I love this band… they know that, everyone knows that, but I just can’t say it enough. If these guys were a drug I’d probably have a major health-endangering problem by now, but fortunately they’re just a bunch of sweet, fun-loving, mega-talented musicians who get a big kick out of making people happy. I last saw them in June, in San Francisco, just before they went to Russia. But it still seemed to me like it had been a very long time since I had seen them, and it was, as always, totally freakin’ amazingly fantastic and magical to see them again. Redondo Beach was surprisingly overcast, windy and even a bit chilly, but that didn’t stop anybody from having a good time. Nothing short of a major earthquake would have, and I think even a quake would’ve had a hard time vying for attention over the Elvises.

They began the show with "Red Lips, Red Eyes, Red Stockings," then played a fairly new song, "Pina Colada," which with words and tight rhythms encouraged people to "get up and dance," and then a couple of older favorites. The crowd was huge and spread out over quite a large area; each time they play Redondo they draw even more people. Eventually some of them started dancing, and even those who remained seated were clapping to the music, laughing and seemed to generally be enjoying the Red experience. They soon did another new song, "Sunshine," a fierce little love song with a lot of groovy hard driving bass and guitar work that gets people moving. This was soon followed by "200 Flying Girls," "Girls Gonna Boogie Tonight," "Gypsy Heart," "Scorchie Chornie," and the ultra favorite, "I Wanna See You Belly Dance," which inspired me to just put down my cameras and shake my pleather-clad booty as much as possible.

They started the second set with "I Will Come Back," followed by a requested favorite of mine (guess who requested it?), "Colors of Rainbow." I love that song a lot, I love the lyrics and I love how on the CD it’s a cool little song and then live it takes on a life of its own and ends up rocking the house…or in this case, the pier. I also love that the guys went to the extra effort of remembering the song and doing it, since Igor initially said he didn’t think he remembered it (thanks again, guys, it was very cool!). They did some more great songs after that, among them "Move to the Beat" (if that is indeed the title), "My Darling Lorraine," "Sad Cowboy Song," and as a finale, the rocking and not recently heard "Everybody Disco." Pelvises shook and fingers pointed into the air on that one as everybody rocked.

This show was part of the traditional "Sawdust Festival weekend" group of shows they play each year on some lucky weekend in July. In next month’s issue will be a report and pictures from the Sawdust Festival show of Sunday, July 29^th. Be sure and see Red Elvises as often as you can; check their tour dates schedule, they may be playing soon near you and you don’t want to miss that!