BrightestYoungThings: LiveDC: EL VEZ! XMAS @ 930 Club

all terrific photos: Chris Chen
all words: Peter Heyneman

The only reason El Vez isn't headlining at the Four Queens in Downtown Vegas right now is this: he'd probably convince the crowd of enormous truckers, twittering bridesmaids and retired Army wives to tear the capitalist Babylon down brick by brick and erect an idyllic commune city based on twisting and puns.

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Other than that stumbling block, his show has pretty much everything the Sin City moguls are looking for:

Hotties: The Elvettes costumes just got spicier with every costume change.

Costume changes: Around 6 or 7, I lost count after the "Santarchy In The USA" line temporarily blinded me with golden cheestasticality.

Self-referential metacomedy: Singing an Elvis cover of a song about Jesus to himself while wearing a T-shirt with his own face on it and changing the words to be about giving himself a wedding ring is like...no there's no analogy there it's just a fabulous mind-fuck.

A-mazing Opening band: The Hall Monitors may be the only viable garage punk band left in DC and Yaweh bless them for existing.

Rockabilly Chicks in audience: As predicted, many 30+ women with curled-under bangs and red socks showed up. What I didn't count on was how adorable their awkward, unhip elbow-locked dancing still is after all these years. "Mom did you used to be cool?" "No honey, I listened to Rockabilly."

Synchronized interpretive dancing: why don't more indie rock bands do this? I'm looking at you Stephen Merritt, stop hiding behind that armoire.
Fuzzy nostalgic Americana plus irony minus bitterness: Equals camp, which you're not supposed to be able to do well or on purpose but there you go.

Splits: He can do them in Santa boots, yes.

Cocaine: Sticking "White Lines" into "White Christmas." "Snow" colon Don't Do It! Ha ha!

Spanish Muttering: As El Vez wanders the stage making his zingers and set-ups for the medley (his explanation for In The Barrio/ Silent Night took about four times as many words as the song), he also mutters extra jokes sotto voce in Spanish. Everyone should learn Spanish, in my opinion. Let's get on that.

Mad Skills: Him and Los Straightjackets and the Elvettes practiced this set for something like two days in Nashville before heading out on tour. There were still a few crossed wires and missed cues, but overall the giant elaborate circus worked perfectly and even when something slipped they laughed about it and covered it with fake feuding between the groups. Moreover, the music sounded stellar humming out of the vintage equipment, especially on the quieter dirtier numbers like Santa Claus is Sometimes Brown. Professional.

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My favorite part of the show though I must say was the encore, when Los Straightjackets came out alone, dropped the Xmas theme, and put on a ridiculous demonstration of Link Wrayian surf-rock grittiness involving thumb-thrumming guitar noise and competetive drum solos. I never saw them back in the day but it made me really wish I had been more into crazy surf punk like Man or Astroman or the Trashwomen when it was a thing. Then El Vez and the Vettes came out with their own lucha libre masks on and screamed Feliz Navidad and blew up giant inflatable lawn ornaments and swung with them. It was like crack for Gen Xers too repressed to enjoy feelings without smirking.

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There aren't a lot of pure traditions left these days, but as long as El Vez keeps touring and sweating through silver jumpsuits I'll keep going to see him even if I've heard all the jokes before. It may look pathetic to Gen Y kids who mainline sincerity, but don't make too much fun of us or we'll put together a Chromeo vs the Faint Captain EO video game and institutionalize your favorite parody acts into musical theater too. Now get off my lawn, I've got a creche to install and these mustaches aren't going to paint themselves on these statues. Bah.

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Previously in Live DC:

2 years ago Jason Bond said

Peter, reading your reviews is like going to a separate, more awesome concert. Thanks.

Also: your membership in Gen X is kind of a stretch, just sayin'.