Is this Fairytale release with Elvis' December 6, 1975 Dinner Show a dream come true?
Design
The two pages booklet has very little design; Elvis against the background of the Las Vegas Hilton marquee and two other pictures on the inside and back cover where you also get the track listing.
Content
It is a bit tricky to talk about content here; Elvis is vaguely audible in the background. This is a real pity. This 14th Las Vegas season got rave reviews from the press. In this dead period of the year for Las Vegas Elvis sold out every of his sixteen concerts while the other shows on the strip rarely attracted more that fifty people per show according to Stein Erik Skar’s “The Concert Years”. Elvis was still overweight but his voice was strong again and Elvis was in a good – humorous – mood. One of the few advantages of this release being an audience recording is that you do hear the crowd’s reaction to that guy in the background. This release could have been a dream-come-true to hear a good and humorous Elvis in good quality … but I guess we’ll have to wait for a better release. Until then we can still enjoy the “Dinner At Eight” soundboard release on the Follow That Dream label or the soundboard import releases “Just Pretend”, “All Shook Up” and volume four in the “Unsurpassed Masters” series. With five other audience recordings available this engagement has been covered very well.
Conclusion
This fairytale release is probably a dream come true for those who were there, to relive - as far as possible – the fairytale of seeing Elvis life in concert
Track listing
2001 Theme / C. C. Rider / I Got A Woman - Amen / Happy Birthday Lisa / Happy Birthday David / Love Me / Fairytale / And I Love You So / Trying To Get To You / All Shook Up / Teddy Bear - Don't Be Cruel / Hound Dog / Sweet Caroline / Polk Salad Annie / Introductions / Johnny B. Goode / Band solos and Introductions / Hail Hail Rock'n'Roll / Elvis Introduces Mrs. Parker, Lisa Marie & Vernon Presley / Just Pretend / How Great Thou Art / Burning Love / Softly, As I Leave You / America The Beautiful / Can't Help Falling In Love / Closing Vamp
If a soundboard of this show appears, it could be mixed with this one to recreate the exact show, beacuse we can't hear the crowd reaction on most soundboars. I liked the cover, it's very pretty... the fonts not so much.
The shows weren´t bad....good setlists..Elvis was in high spirits..so why not..?
Yes,the Dec.'75 shows were quite good. Unfortunatey it's a bad sounding audience recording.
This Vegas season was not only Elvis Last high performance Casino Season (Lake Tahoe and Vegas in 1976 were far far away from this one), but also gave us Elvis last Five Star Concerts of his career, if you exclude the Pontiac Concert from 31 December 1975 and mainly the 5 days tour 27 to 31 of December 1976. It’s too bad the sound isn’t that good because the track list is excellent!
"the track list is excellent" - errah... The track list is 80% equal to every other show he did that decade?
Frankly, who need this crap? We have 2 rather excellent soundboard releases from Dec. 13 Dinner + Midnight, we have unusual and very good sounding audience recording of Dec. 10, 10PM show on LAS VEGAS MOONLIGHT pls another very good sounding 7.12.75 on EARLY MORNING RAIN for those who can't get enough :-). And Opening show "SEASONS GREETINGS" CD in good sound too. All these shows including the same tracks like this "Fairytal In Vegas" poorness...
The 10:15 show on 12/13/75 has been booted a couple of times, and BMG has released America The Beautiful and Softly As I Leave You from it. It is an outstanding show. It takes Elvis a little while to get going, but once he does, you're just blown away by his incredible phrasing and vocal prowess. How Great Thou Art from this show is the very best performance I've ever heard. The reprise alone leaves you wondering how the man could pull off hitting those high notes! BMG's Live In Las Vegas has a couple of cuts from that tour, and you can tell that Elvis was enjoying performing again. So yes, buy the good stuff from this period and avoid the crap like Fairytale In Vegas.
Given..we have quite a few from this gig...but the show itself is good. I`d rather have this one than real crap like the Big Boss Man In Trouble. In other words..every newbie should settle for this one than the afore mentioned one.
Exciting track list? Its basically the same show over & over again, some nights performed better than others. Treat Me Nice, Dont, Devil In Disguise, Good Luck Charm, A Mess Of Blues, His Latest Flame, etc, etc - now theres an exciting track list. Pity Elvis didnt realize his own catalog would have made for the best show ever.
Thats true and whats stranger to me is how he sung songs he never recorded in the studio yet he left out so many of his own top hits!
