Elisa on Tour November 22, 2008

Italian-born songstress Elisa, a multi-platinum, award-winning star in her native country, will launch her first tour of the United States and Canada on October 29, 2008. The tour is in support of her North American debut album 'Dancing', which was released July 15 on Sugar/Universal.

In 2007 the track "Dancing" appeared on the popular reality show "So You Think You Can Dance". Since that episode, the track has been downloaded on iTunes over 80,000 times. This has provided the perfect stepping stone to launch into the U.S. market.

Elisa has shared the stage with the likes of Tina Turner, Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, appearing on at Bocelli's world famous concert in Tuscany, which premiered as a special for the December 2007 PBS Pledge Drive and continues to air repeatedly, nationwide. This concert, featuring the Bocelli/ELISA duet, "La Voce Del Silenzio," as well as ELISA's performance of her own single, "Dancing," was released as a CD/DVD combo - Andrea Bocelli, Vivere: Live in Tuscany- in January 2008. To date, though, her only North American engagements have been singing the Italian national anthem at the closing ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and two sold-out shows at NYC's Joe's Pub in April 2008.

The tour is made of seventeen gigs in some of the coolest venues of the US and Canada. One of them will be the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, OR (830 E Burnside St) where Elisa is playing there on 22nd November. We have asked Elisa to talk about this long awaited tour outside of Italy.

"The tour mainly focuses on the songs included in the 'Dancing' album. I will be accompanied by a 4 person band and I'll be taking a different approach compared with my usual concert performance, as these shows will be tailored to fit in with the intimacy of the club environment. I am going to play different instruments during most of the songs, including acoustic and electric guitars, piano and loop machines. I have never played that much during a concert of mine!" Elisa said.

The setlist will be enriched by some tributes to singers that inspired and influenced Elisa's career. Thus you are going to hear three cover songs originally written by 'Tears For Fears' ("Mad World"), Janis Joplin ("Mercedes Benz") and Kate Bush ("Wuthering Heights"). In addition, the tour will feature other songs from Elisa's repertory, even songs sung in Italian. The main idea turns around the club atmosphere to show the real essence of the songs.

After the gig, a "meet-and-greet" with Elisa will be set up, and the public will be given the chance to buy the 'Dancing' album. In order to ensure yourself a place at the meet-and-greet, you can send an email us at [email protected] with your name(s).

The tickets can be purchased both online at http://ev12.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetEventInfo?ticketCode=GS%3aTWS%3aPDFL08:PDFL1122%3a&linkID=twspok or directly at the venue.

Don't forget to take a look at Elisa's official website at www.elisatoffoli.com as well as at her MySpace page at www.myspace.com/elisaus in order to listen to her voice.

Official Website: http://www.elisatoffoli.com/