El Vez

El Vez
meets
El Wag

I took this photo after the magnificent LA kickoff of his Gospel Tour 98.

Note, in the background, the great velvet El Vez painting, with the "How Great Thou Art" pose.

UPDATE, 21 June 1999, early a.m.: After El Vez rocked Tempe, he met Wagner again and signed the photo from the LA show. And even though I had to grocery shop after the show & I'm dog-tired, I refuse to sleep until I get the signed photo re-scanned & up before bed. Let none say I do not suffer for my Art.

El Vez remembered Wagner (as if anyone could forget him). He also posed for a new El Vez / El Wag photo (see below).

If you are ever in the vicinity of an El Vez show -- say, within 500 MILES or so -- don't miss it! You'll be sorry if you do.

Bonus: after the show, there are lovely Elvettes for statues to woo.

El Vez hangs with El Hombre, after the Tempe show (6/1999).

Elvette Lisa displays her sombreros.

El Vez and Elvette Priscillita work the crowd.

UPDATE, 04oct2004: My first El Vez show in over five years. The openers, The Maricopa County Prison Band (a nod to perennial, perennially evil local sheriff Joe Arpaio's horrible jail) played rockabilly. That large fellow in front? That's not a guitar he's playing. It's a washboard. Washboards are cool.

Told ya.

This being the "El Vez for Prez" tour, El Vez's opening selection was a riff on "I Wanna Be Elected," the old chestnut by Alice Cooper, who also ran for office once (under the campaign slogan "A Troubled Man for Troubled Times.)"

The whole show was a musical discourse against establishment politics.

"Scary Kerry" took some hits, but George Bush came in for especially (and deservedly) scathing treatment, especially in the song (whose title you might be able to make out on the setlist at left) "George Bush on the Guillotine."

What? Were there costume changes?

DUH!

It's El Vez, vato!

One costume change took place right onstage, behind a white shroud. This was the resurrection of El Vez, after being shot in the back by a business-suited assassin identified as an agent of Homeland Security. A woman next to us threw her cup of ice at the assassin as he made his getaway. "Got him!" she yelled happily.

Babs tried to witness one costume change between the show & the encore, ducking behind the stage curtain as the band left the stage, but got shooed back into the building by the Zippy-the-Pinhead-looking stage manager / backup singer. Le oops.

El Vez isn't the only one who can do costume changes. Who doesn't love hotpants? Nobody doesn't love vinyl skirts. (There was just the one Elvette last night; don't know where Priscillita was. El Vez was ailing, so maybe Priscillita was as well.)

What sort of untowardness is this?

It was untowardness, all right -- just not the kind of untowardness you might suspect.

There was wildness onstage and off. Babs at one point had the dance floor to herself, and believe me, she can make use of an empty dance floor. This did not go unnoticed by El Vez, who worked a reference to "robot dancing" into his diatribe-in-progress.

Advice to the entertainmentlorn: DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW. It is coming to a town near you. You can find a tour schedule and more El Vez fabuloso-ness to drink in at El Vez's official website. Tell him Doc sent ya.