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Christmas, Elvis-Style, In Bavaria:
The Elvis Weekend In Bischofsgrün, Germany, DECEMBER 16 – 18, 2011
We were greeted warmly by Markus Henfling, the organizer of this event. Markus was immaculately dressed as always, and I was impressed with the fact that he made the effort to try and welcome each person individually. He told me that the event was sold out, and that 160 fans would be attending. Tired after 7 hours of driving, we went up to our hotel room to unpack. The view from our room was quite simply breath taking. Following an elaborate dinner, Markus informed us that The Imperials were delayed due to weather conditions. He decided that it was best to have them perform on the second night, and not on the first as originally planned. German ETA Oliver Steinhoff would be performing tonight. We decided to check out the modest Elvis Christmas exhibition, as well as the Elvis Matters shop. I picked up the new MRS The Complete Hayride release as well as the FTD ‘4 Days in ‘56’ book, and was well pleased with both. Particularly the FTD book is a real winner: a nice comeback for the label following the disaster of the ‘Fashion For A King’ book. (see review here) It was good to see a lot of familiar faces, like Helmut Radermacher, editor of the excellent ‘Golden Boy Elvis’ magazine. I also spotted German actor Uwe Rohde, who was wearing a TCB chain. He later told me that he had received the chain from a dear friend -- Oliver Steinhoff. I won’t try to hide the fact that I was initially a bit disappointed that we were going to see Oliver instead of The Imperials that night, and the first part of his show did very little to change that viewpoint.
But then, just as I thought about calling it a night, he made a complete turnaround with the show. Oliver got up, and announced that he was going to do a couple of songs from his favorite Elvis sessions, the Memphis ’69 recordings. And right from the get-go he really got into the groove of this material, sounding far more confident and convincing than he had up to that point. His singing was surprisingly good on songs like ‘Power Of My Love’, ‘True Love Travels On A Gravel Road’, ‘You’ll Think Of Me’ and ‘Wearin’ That Loved On Look’. Oliver was particularly impressive on ‘Long Black Limousine’, which he sang with power and intensity. The standing ovation that he got at the end of the show was well deserved. Both my wife and I liked him. Those who know me will attest to the fact that I’m not into the whole ETA thing at all, but we were both pleasantly surprised by this guy’s voice and stage presence -- especially following his less than promising start. Around noon the following day, my old buddy Real (Ray) Bouwman arrived from Holland. I’d told him about the weekend the night before, and he decided to come and visit us together with his girlfriend Deidre. Real and I met up with Helmut Radermacher, and discussed all the latest news and releases in the Elvis world. Helmut was not too pleased as he thought MRS had taken some liberties with their latest Hayride release.
Later that evening, Dennis Jale and his band Jam Gang did a show together with The Imperials. I’d seen the Imperials about 10 years ago in Odense, Denmark and they had been excellent then, but there had been some changes in the line-up since that show. Therefore it was good to see (& hear) that they were still just as good, and perhaps even a notch better. Their harmonies were excellent, particularly on ‘Sweet Sweet Spirit’ (a real showstopper) and ‘He Touched Me’.
Not having seen Dennis Jale from Austria before, I didn’t really know what to expect. Dennis is a neat-looking fellow, very ‘showbizz’ and with a light but generally pleasant voice. It’s always hard for any singer to get compared to Elvis, and I have to admit that at times I really wanted Dennis’ voice to be a bit stronger, but c’est la vie… There’s only one Elvis. On the plus side it has to be said that Dennis is a topnotch entertainer who knows all the showbusiness tricks on how to work a crowd, and he has a tremendous band behind him.
These guys were seriously good, and I particularly enjoyed guitarist Goran Mikulec and slapbass player Manfred Chromy. However, it has to be said that their showbiz antics were a little too much at times; Sometimes Goran would be running to the front of the stage to serve up a series of hot ‘metal’ licks, and then Manfred would do the same, throwing himself on the floor to really slap that bass. Sure, it was all good fun and the crowd really lapped it up, but sometimes The Imperials did look a bit lost amidst all these theatrics. As for Dennis, his best moments came with ‘I Believe’ and ‘Stand By Me’, where vocally he reminded me a bit of Ronnie McDowell. He sang both songs with great warmth.
The time had now come for us to say our goodbyes to organizer Markus Henfling, who proudly told us that this weekend had raised over 800 Euros for needy children. He said that Elvis had always been a generous man, and had supported a lot of charities, especially those involving children, and Markus wanted to continue that tradition in Elvis’ honor. A tremendous achievement, and a great note to end this very special weekend on. For more information on the annual Elvis Christmas weekend in Bischofsgrün, please go to: www.elvisweekend.de/1.html For more info on ‘Golden Boy Elvis’, please visit www.goldenboyelvis.de
Spotlight by Arjan Deelen. Click here to comment on this article All photos by Arjan Deelen unless credited otherwise. Arjan Deelen is the producer of the 'The Original Elvis Tribute' Tours For more information you can visit www.elvisnews.dk
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Elvis Presley, Elvis and Graceland are trademarks of Elvis Presley Enterprises. The Elvis Information Network has been running since 1986 and is an EPE officially recognised Elvis fan club.
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