"Elvis is reborn"
Just to clearify, i have no bad feelings about Bouke, it's a good guy, i met him a few times and it's is a "decent fine boy"
But...
I think Bouke has some kind of "identity crisis" and really believes he is an original.
Slowly but Surely he "transforms" his act, first only the voice, now also the moves are copied and he does it without shame.
I think Elvis is not done justice here, and since i am an Elvis fan, i get pretty irritated by this but when i see reactions on Youtube etc, but it seems i am the only one.
One thing i also dont like, is all the tv/radio stations make fun of Elvis jumpsuits and say "It's much better without"
A certain fanclub also supports this in some way, which i think is wrong.
Ok, there was only one guy who looked great in the jumpsuits, all others look like morrons, but that's not the point.
To me Bouke is nothing but an impersonator, his voice SOUNDS like an impersonater, i even doubt he uses his own voice when he sings cause when he sings a Tom Jones song... he sounds more like Tom and in the early days he also had a pretty good "Shakin' Stevens" imitation.
His last album before "his breakthrough" was called "This is Me" ... check out the cover and you will get the idea why it should have been called
"This is Me.. doing E"
The videoclip "Come a little bit closer" reminded me too much of Elvis during Loving You
Bouke claims to do his own thing, he won the dutch show "Battle of the Bands" and said "The band does Elvis, im doing my own thing"
A few years before he also stated he would be offended if people would call him an impersonator.
All he does however is copying (stealing from) Elvis, i can not see anything "Bouke" when he performs, he has a shakin' left leg, moves his fingers over the mike during See See Rider and there is more:
- On his knees during Suspicious Minds, and exaxt copies of Elvis moves (pretty good btw)
- Falling on his back during Polk Salad Annie
- Hands on his back during Trilogy
He even "spontaneously" had to laugh during Are You Lonesome Tonight and sat down with an electric guitar.
Ends "What Now My Love" (off mike) with "Yeah Baby"
When they filmed him backstage, he sang gospelsongs...
He also talks a lot of B.S. (Funny these are his initials)
He recorded "With special permission from Jerry Scheff" Fire Down Below, (done by lots of artists already) his reaction was, he wanted to release a single but did not want to record anything Elvis already did "He could not beat that (his own words and how true that is!)
Minor note is about 10 years ago he recorded "Wearin' That Loved On Look" and released it as a single
Check out the covers, his name is also in a familar way....
I could go on, but i am just curious how other (dutch) fans think about this.
My personal opinion (especially here in Holland) is most people hear impersonators more often then the real thing, they think Elvis sounded like that.
If that was the case, probably this messageboard would not even excist, cause i for one would not be a fan.
How many times have we heard "Thank you, thank you very much" pronounced in a way Elvis never did, but hey "That was Elvis"
The bottomline is... Bouke is an impersonator, so dont act like you invented your own show.
In my opinion he gets way too much credits for "Being his own"
Either do you own thing, or be a (very good!) impersonator and deal with it.
