EW DAY 3

Today we were out early and down at Graceland a little after 8:00. We had a ticket for the VIP tour. For you that have not been to Graceland, or have not done the VIP tour, a short explanation. It means you can tour the mansion and all the exhibits as many times as you want. You get to see an extra room, see the back of the property, and straight to the front of the line access. Anyway we were in a bind today. The Elvis and Priscilla barbies went on sale today at 10:00. Our tour was at 9:15. They has a ceremony for the unavailing of the dolls with an auction for doll set number one and then you could buy one of the first one's to come straight from Graceland. I had to be part of this. I had been wanting these dolls for a long time now. I was not going to order one from the Internet or get one in another store. No, I had to have one of the first ones from Graceland. So we went up to the house and just rushed in and out quick like. We got back in like 20 minutes, which is way fast. It usually takes me an hour or two to go through the house. We charged down to the place where the Barbies were going to be sold to get in line.
First they auctioned off doll set number one. That doll was autographed by Cilla and the money was to go to a good cause, Presley Place. The doll ended up going for $6,800! Then they gave out some signed wedding pictures from Elvis and Priscilla's wedding. Finally after an hour and a half, I got my doll. It was the highlight of the week so far. I think these are super cool and look cool. They are limited, so between all the crazy Elvis fans and all the Barbie collectors, these should be in demand and be worth some money. We finally got to start out day at Graceland and do the tour right. We did some of the exhibits first such as the car museum, Sincerely Elvis, and the Jets. Nothing new but still as cool as ever to see that stuff. Then we did the tour of the house the right way. Some cool new stuff in the trophy room and in the bonus room that is the VIP only room. I will go into more detail next week when I get home and post some pictures. We also saw the new Private Presley exhibit. I thought it was really well done. I will go into that more later on as well. Finally we went back to the room for some rest to get ready for second day of Music and Movie's day 2.
The night started off with Terry Mike Jeffrey and Band. He was joined later by some members of the TCB band that played with Elvis as well as the Imperials. It was a pretty good show. I was very excited because Terry played some Elvis movie music. He played Drums Of The Island from Paradise Hawaiian Style. You do not hear that often at Elvis events. Finally we got to what everyone on the lawn came to see, ELVIS! They played the 2001 edition of That's The Way It Is. It was cool seeing it on the big screen. When Elvis broke into Polk Salad Annie I was going nuts. After that was over it was around 11:00 and we were still not done. We went to Club Elvis at the Car museum. It is a dance party with Elvis music. It was pretty cool. Spankox, the DJ who just did the Baby Let's Play House Remix was on hand to do some of his other Elvis remixes. It was a lot of fun, I just wish I could have got there earlier to enjoy more beverages and really get into things. We only had an hour or so when we got there until it ended because it was so late when we got there.



Sorry I have no pictures from the event. No flash photography in the museum and the pictures I got are not that good. They are not even worth posting. Tomorrow is day one of the Elvis Insiders conference. It should be a lot of fun. I will be back with a post on it at some point. For now I am off to sleep. I hope this makes sense and I did not leave anything out. I am running on no sleep and I have been partaking in some beer drinking.

TTWII(part three)

I am back to finish my thoughts on TTWII the two disc set. I am so glad they came out with this. I have enjoyed the 2001 special edition ever since I first seen it back in 01. I have always wanted to see the entire 1970 production though. I can't really say which one I like the best. If I had to pick one I would go with the 01 edition because it has so much more music. For historic purposes it is important to have the original. Also some of the music that is so great on the first one is left off the second disc from 2001. I still cant get over Just Pretend being left off of it. It is one of the best but most underrated songs of Elvis's from the 1970's. Watching TTWII and really putting some thought into what I thought of it over the last few days has got me to thinking. This documentary was shot over the period of five or six shows. You see bits and pieces of the shows on the documentary, but I wish we could see all the shows in their entirety. Most of the footage they have has been put on these discs. I bet a lot more footage existed at some point and has been lost and was done away with. What a shame it is we don't have all the shows from this engagement from start to finish. Wouldn't that be something. Elvis gave some of his best performances ever during these shows. He had not done a show at this level in over 12 years. He still had it up to the end in spots from time to time, but he probably never reached this level again putting the whole package together for an extended period of time. TTWII is an important part of the Elvis musical history that has been wonderfully preserved in the new two disc special edition.

TTWII( part two)

I am back to talk more about TTWII. I am going to talk about the 2001 special edition. Where the original edition was kind of took from the fans prospective at times, the 01 special was more of the process from Elvis's view. A lot more music is included in this edition. You see a lot more of Elvis rehearsing with his band and singers. One part I really dig that's not in the original is Elvis singing Love Me during the rehearsal on the MGM lot. The concert footage made of of several shows is pretty good. Several songs that are not in the original edition can be found on this disc. Though a lot of the songs on the 70 version is left off the 01 edition. I can't get over Just Pretend being left off, this song freaking rocks. The sound on the 2001 edition is top notch. Also they have a special look at the way they came up with the new edition of TTWII. A lot of footage that had been shot had not been used. For the longest people thought the unused footage was lost. So they went digging and found the footage no one thought was still around. It is a neat and interesting story of all it all came together. That does it for part two of my review. Tomorrow I will be back with part three with my final thoughts on not only the two versions of this release but my over all thoughts on the event. Also we will have track listing for the two discs and compare the two.

ELVIS-That's The Way It Is(part one)

I am going to talk some tonight about the two disc set that came out last year for That's The Way It Is. One disc is the 2001 special edition and the other disc is the original 1970 theatrical version. I am going to start off talking about disc two first. I was very excited to see the original version. I had seen parts of it before but not the whole thing. When you see it, you see that there is quite a bit of a difference from the two versions. The 1970 version is kind of took from the fans point of view. There is a lot of segments on there with fans. They talk about how they became Elvis fans, what they like about, how they honor him, etc. This cuts into quite of bit of the music. The original does not show all that much of the rehearsal with Elvis and his band or his backup singers. The concert also has a lot of different songs then they 2001 version. Keep in mind the documentary was shot over a period of six shows so Elvis mixed up some of the songs as usual. One thing I loved in this version that was missing from the new one is Elvis's rehearsal of The Next Step Is Love. That was freaking great. I lost it when he came out with "the next step is sex" instead of "the next step is love". Also in showing the interaction with the fans on this disc, they show some of the many celebrities that where at these shows. They showed Juliet Prowse being interviewed and she said she had been to see the show twice. She was about to see it for the third time and thought it was great. I got a kick out of that, she probably wanting a fling with E for old times sake. Also on this disc is many songs that don't make it on to either disc in the outtakes section. That was pretty neat, Little Sister was awesome. I had heard it on disc before, but to see it was neat.This was part one of three of my TTWII review. I will be back shortly with my take on the 2001 special edition.