Elvis at the International Hotel Las Vegas 1969 Box Set

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by emjel, Apr 9, 2019.

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  1. I333I

    I333I Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ventura
    Not knocking his band in any way. They are phenomenal. But at this point they just began playing with him. But they settled in pretty quickly and amazingly through the years.
     
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  2. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    Yeah, I’m not convinced Elvis’ lighthearted disparagement of the Singer Presents special from the Las Vegas stage was genuine. He fully invested himself in the project and was well aware of its ratings and commercial success. I think we was joking around — i.e. sarcastically making light of a recent achievement.
     
  3. minkahed

    minkahed Forum Resident

    Absolutely stellar listen !!!

    Thank you for recreating that, very interesting to say the least.

    I can now honestly say that I still prefer the original vintage mix. The new mixes are fine, I don't mind the slapback echo or reverb or echo, whatever the hell they want to call it nowadays, but listening in on my headphones I compared the two with this re-creation.
     
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  4. minkahed

    minkahed Forum Resident

    I have tons of CD's, cassettes, bootleg vinyl albums from plenty of other artists, especially take for example I'm a huge Van Halen fan , especially of the Roth ERA, and I can't tell you how many times I have seen and heard, from the same tour where Roth says exactly the same thing, every show, different town same monologue with a few words twisted here and there. I mean let's be realistic here, not that Roth isn't a very intelligent person, very quick-witted can come up with anything on the spot, but most of the times it's "look at all the people here tonight", " who thre thatt bottle ?, I'm going to f*** your girlfriend pal" etc etc ... I can't tell you how many times I seen Van Halen with Diamond Dave pull the same ****, do the sword routine for 20 minutes, Eddie do the same solo for the last 35 years, even when I saw them with Sammy it was a bit more pedestrian nothing crazy as my youth was growing up with the Van Halen/ Roth era, but same setlist same show same corny jokes from Sammy, even worse, yadda yadda ... u get my point.
     
  5. MaestroDavros

    MaestroDavros Forum Resident

    Location:
    D.C. Metro Area
    The reason why there’s so much repetition per show is that as a performer, you expect that the next audience won’t be the same as the previous one, so you figure out what jokes and banter work the best and then run with it. Is it playing it safe? Yes. Is it effective? Yes (mostly).

    See, it’s great for an audience where this might be their only chance to see Elvis, but it clearly doesn’t translate well when an individual is listening to multiple concerts back to back. I don’t mind repetition but it’s always smart to change up a thing or two here or there. A handicap for Elvis may have been that he had the same core live band for about 8 or 9 years which breeds comfort and familiarity, but also means that there’s no reason to change it up all that much. I think if something had transpired where his band changed personnel dramatically, you would have seen some changes (and, of course, new jokes to repeat ;) ).
     
  6. artfromtex

    artfromtex Honky Tonkin' Metal-Head

    Location:
    Fort Worth, TX
    The best one, IMO, is:

    "I'd like to take a moment to introduce my band, ladies and gentlemen. Jerry, this is Charlie. Charlie, this is Jerry..."
     
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  7. GillyT

    GillyT Forum Resident

    Location:
    Wellies, N.Z
    I'm still awaiting my copy, but have been listening on Tidal. My son wandered through when it was on and said "It's great to hear Elvis so cool, yet so wonderfully dorky at the same time." Made me laugh.

    I don't own many of the live gigs, but this I had to have. You can almost believe, listening to these high-energy Elvis performances in a solid block, that things didn't end the way they did a mere 8 years later. Almost.
     
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  8. monkboughtlunch

    monkboughtlunch Senior Member

    Location:
    Texas

    Keep in mind these RCA shows were recorded over the span of a mere 5 days. I wouldn’t expect an artist to radically retool their act over such a short time period.
     
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  9. MaestroDavros

    MaestroDavros Forum Resident

    Location:
    D.C. Metro Area
    Actually Elvis did spruce up and vary the set list a bit each show once the multitrack tapes started rolling. Existing audience recordings from the engagement before RCA starting recording show a much more stringent adherence to one core set list, with maybe 1 or 2 songs swapped in and out. While almost no recordings exist between the August 27th dinner show and closing night, it does seem that Elvis was looser and more willing to take risks at the end of the engagement. An incomplete recording from what is believed to be the aforementioned 8/27/69 dinner show features Elvis singing (at least then) live rarities like Loving You, It’s Now Or Never and One Night.

    In case anyone’s interested here’s all the shows currently known to exist in some form (“DS” means Dinner Show, “MS” means Midnight Show):

    August 3 DS (alleged date; 2-track stereo in vaults but all known releases have been from an unused edited mono mix reel from the late 70’s)
    August 6 DS (audience recording)
    August 7 DS (audience recording)
    August 8 MS (audience recording; this has commonly circulated as being the August 5 MS but apparently this was not the case according to the date on the master cassette so the real August 5 MS is currently not known to exist)
    August 12 DS (audience recording)
    August 13 DS (audience recording)
    August 14 DS (audience recording)
    August 15 MS (audience recording)
    August 16 MS (audience recording)
    August 18 DS (audience recording)
    August 21 MS (multitrack & incomplete audience recording)
    August 22 DS (multitrack)
    August 22 MS (multitrack)
    August 23 DS (multitrack)
    August 23 MS (multitrack)
    August 24 DS (multitrack)
    August 24 MS (multitrack)
    August 25 DS (multitrack)
    August 25 MS (multitrack & audience recording)
    August 26 DS (multitrack)
    August 26 MS (multitrack & incomplete audience recording)
    August 27 DS (incomplete audience recording)

    Famed Elvis audience recordist and super fan Rick Rennie is known to have attended and recorded the August 2 DS & August 2 MS, but the one or both tapes (depending on how it was recorded) were confiscated by hotel security. Soundboards may have been recorded but none survive. All in all out of the 57 shows performed at the August 1969 Vegas Engagement, 22 are known to survive at least in part.
     
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  10. monkboughtlunch

    monkboughtlunch Senior Member

    Location:
    Texas
    Who was the recordist of the Aug. 3, 1969 soundboard?
     
  11. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    The recording is a bit of a mystery. I recall hearing at one point that it may have been sourced from a video feed, which really added another dimension to the whole thing. Regardless, Elvis enthusiasts should be thrilled the recording was captured and survived because as great as the multitracks are from August 21 - 26, there was something inspired and very urgent about an early show from the engagement. It is the closest thing we have to experience what it was like to hear Elvis perform at the very beginning of his return to live work.
     
  12. RSteven

    RSteven Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brookings, Oregon
    I am sorry I missed this great back and forth on Elvis' stage banter during the 69 Live shows as I was temporarily off the grid, although I have to say that I did enjoy every minute of it. Elvis's goofy southern sense of humor is one of my very favorites parts of his personality that I truly love. If you take that away from him, you have a guy with a very great voice and musical mind, but to me personally, Elvis's sense of humor is one of his most defining aspects of his personality. Thankfully for all of us here on this thread, Revelator said everything I would want to say and far better than I ever could in his stupendous post above. However, I will follow it up with one of my favorite stories about Elvis's randy sense of humor as told to biographer Jerry Hopkins in his splendid book, Elvis, from 1970. The quote is from Stan Brochettee, who was a young publicist on a movie set at the time the story takes place.

    Stan says that Elvis has four memorable characteristics: (1) his sensitivity and politeness, (2) his curiosity and instinct, (3) his mind, (4) his sense of humor. Explaining the last, he tells what is probably the best Elvis Presley story of all: "I never even met Elvis Presley the first Presley picture I was publicist for. And then I just met him on the second. And then I spoke to him on the third. It was a gradual process and so when I had to go to him for the first time to request permission to bring a visitor on the set, I was less than sure of myself. It was a princess from somewhere or other and I made a speech to Elvis about how big a fan she was: 'She has all your records and she has seen everyone of your your pictures at least three times and she says that if she doesn't meet you, her trip to America will have been a total waste.' I must have talked for a full three minutes, and Elvis just stood there listening. When I finished, his lip curled a little, he looked right at me and said, 'Does she f--k?' "
     
  13. Matthew

    Matthew Senior Member

    So I said "love this for my birthday", which isn't soon, and they said "meh, here you go, have it now."

    Who was I to argue?

    [​IMG]
     
  14. monkboughtlunch

    monkboughtlunch Senior Member

    Location:
    Texas
    Thanks! My reason for asking: we know that starting in 1970 Bill Porter did live sound for Elvis and that Porter recorded Presley.

    But the live sound engineer of the 1969 season seems to be a total mystery! Is his name known and, most importantly, did he record other 1969 shows, including the fabled, unheard July 31 opening night show?

    And can the rumor of a live video feed for the Aug. 3 show be traced to a credible source? Where did this rumor originate?

    Is it not possible the live sound engineer just took the output of a PA console and made an impromptu recording?
     
  15. monkboughtlunch

    monkboughtlunch Senior Member

    Location:
    Texas
    Voyager LP!
     
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  16. Matthew

    Matthew Senior Member

    Arr yeah! Great box-set, fascinating stuff. And the book next to it is about Great Barrier Island in New Zealand. We spent a couple of nights there last year, awesome place which is designated a Dark Sky Sanctuary. The lack of street lighting and no power grid on the island, plus its distance from the mainland means the skies are really pure at night, great for stargazing.
     
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  17. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Dizzy Gillespie also liked that joke. I suspect that it went back to vaudeville and maybe even to Gabriel.
     
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  18. PacificOceanBlue

    PacificOceanBlue Senior Member

    Location:
    The Southwest
    I am not sure how credible it is. You know how the Elvis collectors' community can be -- lots of rumors and innuendo, some of it verifiable, some of it not. I do not recall where that rumor started, but at one point, an insider claimed that the recording in question from early in the 1969 engagement was not sourced from a soundboard, but rather a video feed of some sort. Some of the speculation likely comes from the sound quality being similar to the raw TTWII sound footage fans heard over the years.
     
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  19. monkboughtlunch

    monkboughtlunch Senior Member

    Location:
    Texas
    Why didn’t Ernst use the original source tape for The Return to Vegas FTD instead of an edited, EQ’d, mono-ized analog COPY tape?
     
  20. monkboughtlunch

    monkboughtlunch Senior Member

    Location:
    Texas
    If the Aug 3, 1969 DS is from a video feed, why is the source tape (not used by Ernst) allegedly two track stereo? Video crews recorded in mono on videotape soundtracks, not stereo, in the 1960s. I’m skeptical of the video feed rumor, absence any reliable evidence or proof.
     
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  21. monkboughtlunch

    monkboughtlunch Senior Member

    Location:
    Texas
    How can you make a blanket statement that no other 1969 soundboards survive? Do you know who the house sound engineer was in 1969? Did he tell you all other soundboards were destroyed?
     
  22. JLGB

    JLGB Senior Member

    Location:
    D.R.
    August 3rd show sounds like one track (of a two track stereo recording), to me.
     
  23. Matthew

    Matthew Senior Member

    Probably the same reason the original recording source for the Hawaii ‘61 show wasn’t used by FTD but rather the Elvis’s Aron Presley 1980 LP tape - ease and cost.

    I don’t think it’s a 2-track stereo tape, but rather binaural. But again, rumours. Either way the Return to Vegas release is a big step up in sound over the various bootlegs that came before.
     
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  24. monkboughtlunch

    monkboughtlunch Senior Member

    Location:
    Texas
    Did Joan Dreary have applause overdubbed on the Aug. 3 DS dub tape? The ending of Can’t Help Falling In Love, for example, has what appears to be fake canned applause faded up.
     
  25. monkboughtlunch

    monkboughtlunch Senior Member

    Location:
    Texas
    Disagree re: Aug 3rd. Cost to transfer and master the two track source reel vs the later Dreary dub manipulation tape should not be significantly different. Consider also that Ernst hired engineers to mix 8-track shows, so ease and cost argument is not convincing.

    For Hawaii 61, my understanding is that Sony doesn’t have the original source tape. Didn’t RCA dub the source reel when they published it on the EAP 1980 box? Didn’t the guy that recorded the show only allow RCA to copy the tape—and he kept the source reel? Thus Sony only has a copy of Hawaii 61?
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2019
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