Red Elvises ventured south to the southernmost tip of Florida twice this year, much to the delight of south Floridians and anyone else able to get there to see them play. Since I couldn’t make it to their June shows down there, I resolved to give it my best effort to go in October during Key West’s Mardi-Gras-like Fantasy Fest week.
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Upon reaching Key West I walked next door with my minimal luggage to the Greyhound bus station. The show that night was in Marathon, not Key West, which was about an hour away. Logistically it didn’t make sense for any of my friends to be in Key West at that time to drive over to Marathon, so I was taking the bus. Of course, I was informed later on I could’ve taken a city bus for about a tenth of the cost (Greyhound wasn't bad anyway at $15...cost of the city bus: $1.50), but who knew? This was my first trip to Key West. I managed to talk the bus driver into dropping me off across the street from The Blackfin Resort, which is next to The Hurricane where Red Elvises were going to play. That was pretty cool. I felt like I was in one of those traveling-on-the-road movies, female version… woman gets off bus with small bags and faces the challenge of crossing a busy multi lane highway to reach a smallish, funky but cute Florida Keys motel. My friends were waiting and I was excited to hang out with them and the band again.
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The show that night was great! The guys revved up the temperature in The Hurricane and made it even hotter in there than it already was. I confess that I was incredibly tired during this show, from the traveling, but Red Elvises helped me scrounge up the needed energy and I had a really good time. The dance floor wasn’t huge but people did dance, although a lot of them just watched. The band played two sets full of classic hits and newer delights. Here are the songs played:
Set 1: 200 Flying Girls, Boogie on the Beach, Gypsy Heart, Telephone Call From Istanbul, Hawaii, Love Rocket, Ticket to Japan, Winter Reggae, Sad Cowboy Song and I Wanna See You Belly Dance.
Set 2: Jerry’s Got a Squeezebox, (a song in Russian that I forgot to ask the name of), Venice USA, It’s A Wonderful Night, Scorchi Chornie, Suzanna, Rock Me Sally, Flaming Cheese (an old favorite some of us hadn’t heard in a long while!), Closet Disco Dancer, Juliet, Drinking with Jesus and Lara’s Wedding.
The Hurricane was packed! I’d be willing to bet it’s always like that when Red Elvises play there, because it was a fun loving crowd and they sure seemed to have a good time.
Later that night a few of us – Igor, Chris, Rebecca, Oleg, I… at different times - made our way to the small strip of beach behind the motel and lounged in lounge chairs talking and watching the moon move across the night sky in and out of the clouds. At times it seemed to almost fly… the clouds must have been moving fast. It was so nice and relaxing, a lovely way to end an eventful day and night.
The next morning I went outside with Lilly, my friend Rebecca’s tiny Maltese, and soon saw Oleg running around.
“Let’s wash the van!” he said. That sounded like a fun thing to do. I put Lilly back in the room and grabbed my camera, then went to find the van. There was this guy who went by the name of Crusty (Krusty?), a Red Elvises fan, who had a pressure wash business. The water pumping part of it with a hose to spray water (whatever that’s called) was in the back of his car. So he was going to help Oleg wash the van. I planned to mostly take pictures of this, but I also got into the spirit of cleanliness and grabbed a brush from time to time to help out. It was a lot of fun, as you can tell by some of the pictures:
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After this fun but soapy task, what else but… beer! And lunch at the Hurricane. Chris and Rebecca had each taken off for some fishing and kayaking so Igor, Oleg and I started without them. Roman, Elena and Adam joined us after a little while, and then Rebecca and Chris showed up. Delicious soup, burgers, conch, more beer, other food I don’t really remember… it was all very good as was the company.
When lunch was over the band headed out for Key West, about an hour’s drive. The rest of us got our stuff together and started our drive to Key West. I rode with Rebecca, with Chris following in his car. We made a couple of small shopping stops and enjoyed the scenery, arriving in Key West around 4pm, I think. It was nice weather for it. Just being there was so nice, it put one in mind of Jimmy Buffett… and fruity drinks and cheeseburgers in Paradise.
Key West was pretty much everything I’d imagined it would be, with the addition of quite a few people running around in costumes or just half naked. It was Fantasy Fest week, as well as the week before Halloween, so one was likely to see just about anything on the streets. I was assured the Key West is not normally like that. Okay… It was still picturesque and quaint and almost tropical. I liked it. I hope to go back there someday. Once we got checked into our hotel, Chris, Rebecca and I went to the pool. They left me there swimming, chilling out, and went elsewhere in town. I wanted to swim and mellow out for a little while. Later on, Rebecca called and then came to pick me up to go eat Cuban food, which was another great thing about Key West. I really hope to go back there again someday… and eat at that restaurant again.
Time for the show! It was to start at 10:00pm so I got ready to experience The Green Parrot in person for the first time. I’d watched Red Elvises play there once before on their webcam, which is mounted up in the ceiling so you feel rather like a parrot sitting on the rafters while watching. It’s much much much better actually being there!
The Green Parrot is a medium-sized bar with a large bar in the middle of the room, a smaller bar off to the right side and plenty of room for a really elaborate merchandise set-up as well as dancing or hanging out. The mood there is free and easy, funky and cool, relaxed but intense with energy and excitement during Red Elvises’ three sets. They began the show with Lovepipe and moved on into some other classic songs that we’ve loved for years: Telephone Call From Istanbul, Gypsy Heart, Boogie on the Beach and Suzanna. Then a few newer songs were interspersed with older ones as they played Better Than Cocaine (or Sweeter Than Champagne, same song), Ukrainian Dance #13, Burning For You, one sung by Oleg that I think might be called Looking For Cool(?), Winter Reggae, Sad Cowboy Song, Memoirs of a Hooker and I Wanna See You Belly Dance.
After the break between sets they came back and thrilled the crowd even more by launching into Venice USA, followed by 200 Flying Girls, Schorchi Chornie, Rock Me Sally, Flaming Cheese, My Darling Lorraine, a really cool waltz song in French, My Love is Killing Me, Night Butterfly and Juliet.
This was turning into a cornucopia of Red Elvises Greatest Hits! For set number three they started it off with a bang by playing Drinking With Jesus. The crowd went wild! After that, having discovered a couple of local guys there with horns who could really play, they had a jam session with those two guys (sorry, I never got their names), playing Johnny B. Goode and La Bamba, which was a lot of fun. The band continued the show with Twist Like Uma Thurman, Flaming Cheese again, Chris Isaak’s hit song Wicked Game, Love Rocket and Hawaii. What a great show! It was simply amazing… no words can adequately describe it. Unfortunately, the webcam wasn’t working that night so those who weren’t there couldn’t see it. But by the next day the camera was again operating.
I was only able to be in Key West for two of the three days Red Elvises played there so I wanted to make the most of my time. On the Wednesday, Oct. 24th, some of us went out seven miles offshore on a big boat. A gi-normous catamaran, to be exact. Rebecca had arranged it and we hoped to take as many band members as we could get to go. When the time came, Adam and Elena went with Rebecca, Chris and me; the other guys opted to sleep in, boats not being a huge priority with them. When we got out on the water I found out this was a snorkeling trip! I had never snorkeled before and was a little intimidated, I guess that’s the word, so I decided I’d just stay on the boat while the others snorkeled.
That plan went by the wayside…
First of all, there were two ways of getting off the boat and entering the water. One way was jumping off the side. Uh, no, I don’t think so. Although everyone else did and they all survived nicely and came bobbing back up once they hit the water.
 Elena made a little splash… I missed it. |
 Adam’s splash got caught better on camera! |
The other way involved going down the stairs that were lowered in the middle bottom of the boat… on your butt. And that’s the way I eventually got into the water, clinging to a swim float that looked sort of like a small yoga mat. No mask or flippers for me, I was just going to swim around a little, keep things simple. Until I got out to where Rebecca was snorkeling and she practically forced me to put her mask on and look under the water. I’ve always had a “thing” about not putting my face underwater, but I’m glad I did it this time. “Wow, it’s DEEP!” were my first words when I tried it. I saw little fish swimming around by my feet! I was assured it wasn’t that deep right there, that that 20 or 30 feet (I’m totally guessing) was considered “shallow.” Uh huh… when my feet can’t touch the bottom it’s deep by me. But it was clear and beautiful, even though it was a rather overcast day. After my five minute quickie snorkeling lesson in the water, Rebecca let me keep her mask and she got another one. She and Chris kept holding onto my float, I guess so I wouldn’t float away. But I soon felt comfortable. Snorkeling is something you should definitely try at least once. We even saw a barracuda swim past us! Adam and Elena were already back on the boat by then relaxing. The water started getting more and more choppy, so after a little while – our time was almost up anyway – the rest of us started back to the stairs to get back on board. That was a little dramatic; the stairs kept banging up and down and it was hard to get started going up, but through sheer determination I managed it. Back safely on the boat the guides offered us beer, wine, etc. and we relaxed and took some more pictures.
 Elena, Adam, Chris and Rebecca ready for snorkeling. |
 In the water |
 Adam, Elena and Rebecca relaxing after snorkeling. |
 Rebecca with the boy who works on the boat |
 Elena on the boat. |
 ">All of us relaxing on the boat. |
So I probably had a little too much wine and was a little sloshed by the time we got to The Green Parrot (after stopping by the hotel to change and freshen up) for the 5:30 “soundcheck” show that day. I didn’t write those songs down but the band played for about an hour in their regular clothes, shorts, jeans and so on. The songs included many of those listed above and below.
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Later that night they played the nightly 10:00pm show. Starting with I’m Not That Kind of Guy, then Lovepipe, a song sung by Oleg that I couldn’t get the title of, Burning For You, Telephone Call From Istanbul, Winter Reggae, Flaming Cheese, Sad Cowboy Song and Bellydance. Again, they were amazing, like they’d been born to play with that incredible energy and love of what they do.
The second set of that Wednesday night show began with 200 Flying Girls, then Oleg sang that elusive song again that I don’t know the title of, then they did the always fabulous Flaming Cheese, the French waltz song, a Russian song I think…(not sure, my notes aren’t too clear at that point and my memory doesn’t work either!), Looking for… (Cool?), Twist Like Uma Thurman, Scorchi Chornie, Juliet, The Train is Coming (I love this song, it’s an old one I first heard at Rusty’s back in, I believe, 2001 but never has been recorded), Love Rocket, Better than Cocaine, and that’s as far as I got. I confess to having a bit too much to drink. I was strangely tired (alcohol, probably)… it was pouring rain… I walked to the hotel and then back, missing part of the third set. I’m glad I went back to the bar though. I think the little walk rejuvenated me a bit.
Anyway… The whole trip and all the shows, it was all kick ass!! Every show Red Elvises played in Florida was awesome, I don’t even have to tell you. The energy, the joy of it, the feel-good vibe... they were just tremendous. I’m sure the whole tour was like that, wouldn’t doubt it a bit. We all know how great they make us feel with their music. I’m really glad I went to the Keys this time, it was an awesome experience.