Friday 3 February 2017

A Big Hunk O' Love, Live 26/01/72 OS (First Time Performed Live)

On return to live performances in 1969 Elvis' initial setlist was heavily loaded with many of his 50's hits intertwined with some more recent hits and recordings. As the 70's wore on most of the 50's hits were maintained albeit in abbreviated forms and occasionally some songs from the 50's like 'Trouble' would make an appearance for a full season before being dropped or others would have one off performances such as 'I Was The One' on 12 Aug 1970 during that legendary sit down section at the Midnight show.
An exception to all of those examples was A Big Hunk Of Love which two and a half years after the live comeback was the 'oldie' introduced to the setlist among five new songs on 26 January 1972 and would become almost a permanent fixture in the setlist for exactly two years and was usually given a fully committed performance.
It was sung on the first two shows of Elvis' tenth Vegas season on 26 January 1974 before being appearing to be dropped and never to be performed live again. In the time that it was included in the setlist it was three times committed to film firstly in the 1972 movie Elvis On Tour (from Hampton Roads on 9 April) then during both Aloha shows (although a fourth is likely to have been filmed for 'On Tour' at Greensboro on 14 April).
Incidentally it was the fourth last track recorded in the 50's on 10 June 1958 before Elvis began his national service in the Army and it would be almost two years before Elvis entered the recording studio again on 20 March 1960.
In this wonderful first 70's live version Elvis is practically spitting out the words, almost like the old Elvis - who said Elvis of Vegas couldn't do rock 'n' roll!!!

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