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BITE THIS
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It was the first night of Lisa Marie Presley’s first tour, so she could be forgiven if her show at FleetBoston Pavilion last Friday felt like a dress rehearsal. Chris Isaak was the headliner, but Lisa Marie’s fans had occupied the front row. One man, stocky with slicked-back hair, wore a low-necked black wifebeater with a home-made inscription: "LMP," and beneath that, "The Artist." Lisa Marie had her own T-shirts for sale; on the front they read, "LMFP" (the "F" does not refer to any of her given names), and on the back they said, "Bite This." Before she took the stage, the PA played her official intro music; heavy on schmaltzy majestic synthesizers, it could’ve passed for a 21st-century Also sprach Zarathustra. The show got off to a rocky start: after opening with "Better Beware," her seven-piece band flubbed the intro to "S.O.B.," then stopped and started over. Nevertheless Lisa Marie’s fans, many of whom knew her from the tabloids before they knew her music, stood and cheered every song in what took on the character of an offering of moral support. "We Love You Lisa Marie" read the front of one sign. The back said, "We Love Elvis." Wearing a jean jacket and work trousers, she appeared to consult a conspicuously placed music stand for the occasional lyric. Whereas Elvis’s hips once swiveled in three dimensions, Lisa Marie’s rocked suggestively from side to side. The big-screen monitors caught her lip on the verge of a sneer as she sang. She had an appealingly coarse, low-slung voice, but the band were sterile and reserved, and the songs melted together into one long, mid-tempo adult-contemporary pop ballad. While she was singing, she seemed nervous playing the role of a serious, sensual diva; in the pauses between songs, the cheers made her giggle. "Thank you," she said, and then, perhaps before she could catch herself, "Thank you very much." Did she enjoy herself? She accepted flowers from the front row but seemed unnerved by the fist-shaking boomers and bikers angling for a snippet of her attention, and she hardly ventured to the lip of the stage, being instead content to bask in the shadow of her musicians. Still, she seemed annoyed when after they’d done her single, "Lights Out," her guitarist whispered that their set was almost over. "Great, we’ve got seven minutes left, but somehow we’ve only got time for one more song," she huffed. They played "Sinking In," and then the band exited en masse. For the first time — but not the last — LMFP had left the building.
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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