Let me entertain you chimes a UK game show host-like pop performer. I’m sure you’ve heard him and, like me, you gave him the rubber ear. Meanwhile a true entertainer like El Vez is hard at it on the road. It’s an ill-divided world because I know who deserves to be selling out stadiums and who doesn’t. It’s all subjective of course but as Handsome Dick Manitoba might say, I am right! El Vez isn’t a conventional Elvis impersonator at all. What he does is more akin to one of these musicals that has sprung up in recent years. However, instead of just taking the catalogue of one artist he uses the spirit and foundation of The King. Then he takes 50+ years of popular music and knits it together to arrive at a revue style of ginormous proportions. BTO, T. Rex, The Jam, Iggy, U2 and Aerosmith all go under the thunder and into the blender. Anyway, this dvd document catches up with EV and his Mormon Mariachi band at the Sala Arena in Madrid around Easter of 2007. The flavour of this particular feast is gospel music and while you won’t be struck down for watching this blasphemy but you might be struck dumb. Chances are that you never saw anything like this and that being the case, viewing could alter your entire life direction. Did you ever see the Ted Lyons sequence in the movie Gumnaam? Well that’s the kind of dash that this guy cuts. Great songs that take current twists and turns within the choreography but always rooted firmly in both the rock and the roll. The end result is a very sophisticated but never condescending swathe of all music – past and present. It makes the future look anything but bleak. The lone Elvette, Lisa Marie and her boss go through a multitude of lightning costume changes through the course of the set and the MM’s keep it all bubbling along like a real combo should. How many times do you see a band tune up between every song? Too often but not here, no siree, life is too, too short and filled with stuff. El Vez is conscious of this commodity and how short the average attention span is and weaves his spell accordingly. The El Vez experience is guaranteed to put a grin on the face of anybody who comes into contact with it. You’ll learn a little bit about his heritage whilst you jump up and down like a mad person. It’s all part of the cleansing. This film should whet your appetite to be first in line for tickets when they hit up your town or somewhere nearby. And don’t forget, there’s an election coming up in the USA and there’s really only one candidate who could turn it all around in a heartbeat. Say it loud then, he’s brown and he’s proud… El Vez for Prez! You know it makes sense. Lindsay Hutton