Released on the young MFX label are two concerts from January 1971. Their previous release wasn’t very memorable, will this one be remembered?
Design
Like their previous release the artwork looks “home made”, you can see the cutting of the images, low quality of printing and the liner notes, although entertaining and informative, are presented using several hard to read fonts on a dark background. On the plus side, the producers found some great images.
Content
For this fourth season in The International in Las Vegas Elvis added the now famous 2001 theme to the show and deleted “Can’t Help Falling In Love” in favour of “The Impossible Dream” as the closing theme.
This Vegas season was the first that showed Elvis losing interest. The shows were fast and short. Short on the hotel management's order, since Elvis kept the audience from the gambling tables. This enables this release to capture two of these shows on one disc, the January 28, 1971 midnight show and the January 29, 1971 dinner show. Both shows are pretty identical with the exception of a handful of songs Elvis performed only at one of the two shows.
Although Elvis may have lost his drive these two shows show him full throttle, he blasts through his set list, with his band setting the tempo. Due to the fact that he sounded strong this isn’t really a problem listening to these shows. The rockers rock and the ballads, like “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” are a nice resting point along the way. The trip is not a quality ride, but it gets you there in a pretty entertaining way. The “Teddy Bear” is too fast and a “Snowbird” tries to keep up but Elvis slows it down, but he needs three attempts to get it started and get away with it. Still the shows contain enough of my personal favourites like "Sweet Caroline", "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me", "Something" and "Johnny B Goode" to enjoy this ride.
The January 28, 1971 MS was previously released on "Lean, Mean And Kickin' Butt"while the January 29, 1971 DS previously saw the light on the import release entitled "Snowbird". See our reviews of those releases for details on the shows.
Conclusion
The audio quality is surprisingly good, but it is not a top notch soundboard. Together with the tempo of the show it wasn’t a punishment to listen to this release for a review. The new MFX label improved their output considerably with this release. This set will get another spinin the CD player.
Track listing:
01. 2001 Theme / 02. That's All Right / 03. I Got A Woman / 04. Love Me Tender / 05. You Don't Have To Say You Love Me / 06.Sweet Caroline / 07. You've Lost That Loving Feeling / 08. Polk Salad Annie / 09. Johnny B Goode / 10. Something / 11. The Wonder Of You / 12. Heartbreak Hotel / 13. Blue Suede Shoes / 14. Hound Dog / 15. One Night / 16. Teddy Bear / 17. Suspicious Minds / 18. The Impossible Dream / 19. That's All Right / 20. I Got A Woman / 21. Love Me Tender / 22. You Don't Have To Say You Love Me / 23. Sweet Caroline / 24. You've Lost That Loving Feeling / 25. Polk Salad Annie / 26. Johnny B Goode / 27. Something / 28, Heartbreak Hotel / 29. Blue Suede Shoes / 30.Teddy Bear /31.Hound Dog /32.Snowbird /33.The Impossible Dream.