Audionics released the last of five shows Elvis performed in Huntsville during his May / June 1975 tour. A professional release from all involved?
Design
This release is a quality package; a good design, nice images of our man and a 16 pages booklet with factual, yet a bit too positive liner notes on the show at hand. In a short time this import label has become one of the quality labels.
Content
This show, entitled "Adios Huntsville", is the last of Elvis' five legendary Huntsville concerts from the May / June 1975 tour.
This soundboard of this concert start at "Love Me" and Audionics decided to include "See See Rider" and "I Got A Woman / Amen" from Elvis' October 6, 1974 evening concert in Dayton to create a complete concert experience. But is it a nice concert experience?
Listening to the show it is a pretty basic set-list, so the surprises must be in the performances. Unfortunately they can’t be found there either. Elvis isn't quite concentrated and appears to be distracted from his "work" on stage although he mentions "I only work here" so he knows he is up there to make a living (a tough way as he tries to fool the male part of the audience kissing all the girls). Perhaps it is due to the women in the audience, they only appear to want get a lot of kisses and scarves.
For me there aren’t any real highlights in this show. Elvis needs help from the audience for the lyrics of “Burning Love”, a song he recorded and performed. For me that shows a total disrespect of Elvis for his work, and worse, for his fans. How unprofessional. He only saves himself from this sad position by starting a song he has known for years, "Polk Salad Annie", but skips the intro and going straight in the song. Songs like “Why Me Lord” and “An American Trilogy” which could have been highlights because our man usually tries to make an effort of his performances of these songs aren’t worth mentioning either. Getting back to the before mentioned disrespect, making jokes on you backing vocalist (JD Sumner) why praising the Lord in a gospel doesn’t show that much respect to the man in the sky either.
Conclusion
This release is a professional looking package with a mediocre show in great audio quality. Too bad Elvis wasn't that professional during this show since his "professional" contribution is the most important of the three.
Adios Huntsville
By ElvisNews.com / Kees, August 10, 2007 | Music
jenko wrote on
August 10, 2007
good lookin package but a very very very poor performance from elvis.....sad really
wayup wrote on
August 10, 2007
The review is definitely way too harsh to Elvis. The show is far from being very poor, also far from being poor. If you rate this show as very poor, how you rate i.e. Indianalpolis 77 then - as total shit? It's good show, way better than majprity of Summer/Autumn 74 ones for example. Check Chris Brown's book On Tour With Elvis to have an idea. I'll Remember You, TROUBLE, Polk Salad or I Can't Stop Loving You are highlights of this performance - at least to me.
Elvisnites wrote on
August 10, 2007
You take the good with the bad. In my opinion there is no bad, only bad audio quality. Since you said this has great audio quality it has to be great. On his off shows he's a thousand times better than most singers in their best show. Who wants cookie cutter shows? How boring would that be.
Ronaldv wrote on
August 11, 2007
I think this review is far too negative! The sound of this cd is awesome, really. The show is not one of his best from '75, but it is quite different than a standard show and there's nothing wrong with that. I think this is a good release, far better than all those audience recorded shows lately. But the double cd Vegas variety (sept. 1 74) is an exception, that's an interesting audiene release.
FLY-TROUBLE! wrote on
August 11, 2007
Great CD,thank you,Audionics! Next time please release the full Dayton show. I don't have the old bootleg,it'll be great to buy that show in good sound quality.
You Dont Know Me wrote on
August 12, 2007
I listened again last night for the 3rd time. The ONLY 'negative' aspect of the whole show is Elvis stuffing up with the false starts to 'the wonder of you' + 'burning love' but that aside its a show as good as the others...(this review here is far, FAR to 'negative!'.)indeed we got 'polk salad annie' instead of 'burning love' and his spirit and interacting with the fans is superb. Certainly the sound would be up their amongst the top 3 shows for sound this tour and after huntsville is all released it would only leave Shreeveport on the 7th that we havn't had shows from. good tour throughout and i don't get sick of hearing Elvis in good form!
Ciscoking wrote on
August 13, 2007
IMO this disc is a winner...no matter what..just compare with the AR crap we got the past few months..
sal05 wrote on
August 13, 2007
Hey..I don't know what some of the folks below are talking about but this show is far better than other ones I have heard in the past. Elvis at least still tries to vocalize farily well in some of the songs, such as I'll Remember You and even The Wonder of You once he gets that going. Even the version of Trouble is pretty good. Plus the sound on this thing, except the first few songs which were spliced from another show, is pretty damn good. On a 5 star scale for sound, I'd give it a 4.5. In some of the later shows you can see moments of brilliancy in Elvis' performance, in this show, we are still in 1975 and was still able to put on a pretty decent show, as he did with this one..in my opinion.