Title: Green Green Grass Of Home (released in 1993)

Label: The Elvis Presley Live Collection

Date: August 20, 1975, Las Vegas' Hilton, Las Vegas, Nevada (dinner show)

Sound Quality: * * / * * * * * +

Concert Rating: * * * * + / * * * * * +

Tracks: 1.Also Sprach Zarathustra 2.See See Rider 3.I Got A Woman / Amen / I Got A Woman 4.Hound Dog 5.It's Now Or Never 6.And I Love You So 7.Blue Suede Shoes 8.Green Green Grass Of Home 9.Fairytale 10.Softly As I Leave You 11.Band Introductions 12.Johnny B. Goode 13.Hail Hail Rock'nRoll 14.T-R-O-U-B-L-E 15.Why Me Lord 16.Until It's Time For You To Go 17.Burning Love 18.Can't Help Falling In Love 19.Closing Vamp (Duration: 53 min. 24 sec.)

Package: It's the biggest minus in this release, but the content pays it off.

Elvis: The show is quite short (barely over 50 minutes, of which almost 10 are the band intros), but this is because of the energy level - the concert is very good, Elvis is really having fun onstage, concentrating on performing rather than talking.

Highlights: Almost all the songs are wonderfully performed, the song selection and order is quite unusual because of the request boxes.

Review: Having completed three long and energetic tours in 1975, Elvis was back in Vegas for the Summer Festival. He had brought the practice of the "Request box" from his July appearances in Ashville, having fans to write down the names of their favorite songs, so he could perform them. This brought spontaneity to the regular concerts, but it was not to last long.

This release covers the first show of the engagement's last night. The sound quality is fine for an audience tape. The audience seems very glad when Elvis hits the stage to start the concert with an enthusiastic (even if not too much vocally powerful) See See Rider. After an unexpectedly short "well, well" starting routine, Elvis leads the band into a standard I Got A Woman, and the audience is less responsive than on tour - they do not answer to Elvis' request of singing Amen along. However, the ending is much shorter and this can only make us glad. Elvis does Hound Dog in this very moment of the concert in order to fulfill the audience's request. Unfortunately this doesn't make the song any better than always, as Elvis' voice is weak here and there's no feeling in the performance. On the other hand the following It's Now Or Never is simply outstanding, as Elvis' voice is great, the phrasing is very careful, a real beauty.

He doesn't fulfill the request of Are You Lonesome Tonight for whatever reason, but after asking for the words to And I Love You So goes into this song, which becomes different because there's no intro played by James Burton (in fact, he almost is not audible on this song and contrary to what we are used to, Glen D. takes the song's lead) and the orchestra also doesn't fully play it. A beautiful rendition, to say the least. Elvis responds to a called request of Blue Suede Shoes (performed in the quite typical rushed manner) and then declares "Let's go back to the request box for a second," and he finds the song to be Green Green Grass Of Home, with beautiful violin and flute arrangements and changes of words ("As I fell out - step out - from the train"), a vocally powerful rendition. The audience begins moving by this point, as they begin clapping along the rhythm of the following Fairytale. The song itself is not among the best versions, though Elvis gains confidence at the points of powerful notes. Elvis begins the introduction of Softly As I Leave and gets audience's approving clapping after the words "And it is a true story of a man who's dieing," and even though he manages to mess up with the words ("He laid beside her... I mean she laid by his side and she goes up to sleep... Laid by her side, when sure he was dead...") the performance itself is very emotional and is well received.

Elvis jokes all the way through the introductions, there is a tape change right before the rocking Johnny B. Goode. It seems that Elvis is not on stage during the introduction of Jerry Scheff, as somebody (sounding very much J.D. Sumner - alike) introduces him, but then Elvis comes back. A fine T-R-O-U-B-L-E is followed by a very funny Why Me Lord? - poor J.D. Sumner can't stop laughing and we can't as well! Elvis gives his final portion of energy with the performance of Burning Love and to everybody's disappointment Elvis doesn't respond to any more requests and goes into the show closer.

This CD (as much as such CDs as Las Vegas In Gypsy Style and The Request Box Shows which, by the way, contains a part of this concert) is a real must have for those serious fans who prefer quality performance over great sound quality.

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