August 20 1974 Dinner Show
Review by Christine Colclough - Elvis News Service Weekly, Issue 169 (September 25 1974)
His father, Dee and Linda were there - Elvis wore the jumpsuit with a rainbow of different blues in a broad stripe down his back and front and down the side of each leg. This suit has a matching belt. This belt had a weak chain loop to Elvis' left, and only minutes after he came on there was a long loose bit of chain swinging down by his side instead of a neat loop. He held up the chain for a while but soon took the belt off to the appreciative cries of the audience. A girl tied a sash round him while he was singing 'Love Me' (an audience-contact song) but it had a large square label on it saying ELVIS and this she left dangling down in front of him, probably on purpose. Elvis looked a bit sheepish for a moment and headed in mock bashfulness for the wings, but turned back and let the audience appreciate the joke for a little while. Then back came his proper belt, either an identical one, or mended by a minion in the wings - Elvis just stood and raised his arms slightly while it was put on him. He didn't put it on himself.
He received many more gifts this show. The Hilton Gift Shops were selling little soft round hats with a brim with Elvis' name and picture all over them. He was given one of these and wore it all through a song looking very child-like and sweet. He wore the brim up at the front, and then down all the way round. It seems Elvis will always wear a hat if you give him one. He received quite a variety as the engagement progressed, and wore them all.
He was given a white necklace which stuck on his nose for a while when he put it on, a green scarf which he also wore (he doesn't wear all these things at the same time, I should point out!). and a large white toy ram, very handsome. He hands over all these presents to Charlie, and when he had given Charlie the ram, Charlie held it under his arm while trying to put a new scarf over Elvis head, but Elvis kept shying away as if he didn't want to be given one by Charlie. "You got my goat", he explained.
His hair was very beautiful this show. When he shook his head, his hair would always fall back into place. It still parts naturally in the middle, but falls across his forehead in an unintended fringe. It looks about the length it was in Elvis On Tour, but more layered in out. He would begin each show with it neatly combed back in the typical Elvis style, but even when he had been shaking his head around in the course of the show, it never looked untidy.
Elvis was in a very good mood this show, and seemed energetic, as he did in fact for the whole of the time I saw him. This engagement he seemed very happy and talkative and sometimes he just, literally, quivered and vibrated with energy and well-being. When he's in a state of mind and body like this, it's easy to see the reason why he has had such phenomenal appeal over the years. The magnetism of this energy and enthusiasm is terrific. You can feel the show and the mood of the audience take off and soar. This must have been what the lady in That's The Way It Is, meant when she said, "You could just feel the love in the room". Elvis Presley is some fantastic kind of man, but when he's like this, the result and feeling of happiness and affection between him and his audience is almost beyond description. Clearly this is why he's the most fascinating and adored entertainer ever! I took a glance at his Father at the height of this wave of whatever it is he generates and he was sitting there, head on one side smiling at Elvis, apparently ag absorbed as any other member of the audience.
Sometimes in this kind of mood, I sense that Elvis is beginning to puzzle the audience slightly - or those of them unfamiliar with his sense of humour. They begin to quieten down, not quite sure what's going on, but this show Elvis sensed it too and became more business-like until the audience knew where they were again! Sometimes he's too quick for them and speaks and acts so fast that the audience gets lost, and just wonders what's going on between Elvis and his musicians and a few cognoscenti near the front. It's curious how this idea has developed that Elvis isn't bright. Frequently he was a couple of steps ahead of everyone else in response to what was happening around him, and one found oneself thinking quite hard to keep up with him.
When he was given the white chain and got It stuck on his nose, the people who gave it to him must have said to each other, "It don't fit", because Elvis suddenly sprang onto a "caught you!" posture leaning forward pointing his finger at them and said, in "triumph," "HA! It don't fit!". They stared back in surprise and Elvis held his pose, still triumphant for some reason at over-hearing them, and said by way of a warning to be careful what they said, "I have ears like a deer!" I'm still not sure what that was all about, but Elvis seemed very pleased with the efficiency of his ears.
He was given a crown with red jewels which he put on Charlie's head saying, "I crown you.." but got no further, so pretended to knee him, and at this one of the jewels fell out of the crown.
This show he sang the 'Hawaiian Wedding Song' for the first time, and seemed to want it to be a surprise to the audience, as he didn't say its title, but mouthed it mysteriously to Glen Hardin a couple of times before Glen could guess what he meant. The song improved as he did it during succeeding shows and the band and singers gradually understood what they were meant to be doing during the song. Elvis used to get rather exasperated at various peoples' failure to come in at the right time. I wonder when they rehearsed it. Still, he stuck to it every show and it always received great applause. He walked over to Kathy at the end and they alternated the final lines "I do," I do," "'Love you", "'Love you," "with all my heart" only Elvis sang the few Hawaiian words at the end instead of "heart" while Kathy sang "heart". The lights went off on the last notes, and Elvis would kiss Kathy while they were off, responding nicely to the mood of the song. In later shows, this became a quiet audience-contact song. Audiences always seemed to love hearing the old romantic songs. He also received great applause for 'It's Now or Never', and 'Spanish Eyes', when it occurred to him on odd occasions to do those too.
Elvis moved energetically in many of the songs this season, particularly in 'Fever' where, towards the end of the song, he seemed to pretend that his knees were completely out of control, and he would whack at them and cry, "Quit! Quit!" and end up with a comic spasm of wriggling. Is this what they mean by sending himself up? Anyway, this show when he finally controlled his knees and stood straight-up with a blank face and then a laugh, the audience gave him a round of applause and so prevented him singing the last little bit of the song.
He pretended to have his hand stuck in the loop of his belt. When they sang 'Let me be There', he and Estelle would always give each other a victory sign on the line, "only two can share". and then Elvis would try variations, such as the showing three fingers, or four, or putting up his little finger and fore-finger to make the two - This is like the Hawaiian peace sign he gives at the end of Aloha. Sometimes Elvia would do a variation and Estelle didn't notice, but I expect a good many others were taking it all in.
In this show, he began his habit of trying to make JD laugh when he sang 'Why Me Lord'. This show Elvis and Charlie were talking together tete a tete in the dark as if plotting something while JD sang, but Elvis only made irreverent comments and laughed into the microphone to put JD off. He thought of other methods later....
A little boy of about ten got onto the stage, for a scarf, I think, and then didn't seem able to find his way off again and had to go back to Elvis to ask how to get off. Elvis said, "Get off the way you got on - just go and jump off the stage." He didn't sound quite his usual indulgent self! I think he was just joking. Sometimes when he gave a scarf to a child sitting by the stage, he would dangle it down by the child's head and whip it round go that it wrapped loosely round the child's eyes, as he did this show.
Two little girls gave him a toy cement mixer lorry, and said something about it to him, and he said, "oh yes", nodding as if he quite understood.
When they were doing 'Why Me Lord', Elvis had to talk right over to the Stamps so that his spotlight illuminated them too, to show the light-man that they should be lit up when they sang. He was slightly annoyed that this had been forgotten, and sand, "The lights are in your hand", instead of "My soul's in your hand." During a later show, he did this too for Charlie in 'Bridge'.
He held JD's hand very affectionately when he was introducing him. There is clearly an affinity and respect between the two of them.
He balanced the towel over his face twice, as in Elvis On Tour, holding his head back and seeming to relax like that for a second.
This show resumed the use of '2001', the guitar and the usual 'C.C. Rider' and 'I Got A Woman' opening, and in consequence, seemed more natural and impressive than the opening show. There were standing ovations for 'Bridge', 'Softly As I Leave You', and at the end of the show.
August 20 1974 Midnight Show
Review by Christine Colclough - Elvis News Service Weekly, Issue 169 (September 25 1974)
Elvis wore a white jumpsuit with a pale-silvery phoenix design on the front and back, with a white belt with stripes of the same silvery-blue. The suit has recently been on the cover of an American Movie Magazine, but in that picture he's wearing a different belt. He also wore the diamond studded Maltese cross.
When he opened his mouth for the first words of 'C.C. Rider', there was no sound on the microphone, and in disgust he threw it and its stand back towards Charlie. He used a hand microphone, therefore, right from the start of the show, and this meant that he wasn't able to use his guitar at all although, he was wearing it. This annoyed him - He is always irritated if something goes wrong when it ought not to. He muttered something sarcastic about the show being very professional.
He received many little presents from Japanese fans, including a little lantern he spent ages trying to fix to his belt, but ended up breaking it - He was given many single roses, some wilting already.
Often he would draw out the start of 'I Got A Woman', reacting to the screams or sighs that came from the audience when he did the slow "Well, well, well," beginning. He would stare in surprise in the direction where the sound came from and would always make the audience laugh by his reaction to the girls' reactions. Then he would swing his left knee round and Ronnie would make the appropriate accompanying sound on the drums. Elvis would do the other knee, then one after the other, until he worked himself into a rhythmic swivelling movement, rather like a loose-limbed marching on the spot, accompanied still by Ronnie on the drums. The audience would respond with screams until it all broke up with Elvis and everyone else laughing. Then he'd go back to 'I Got A Woman'! JD still does his long bass groan at the end, and Elvis still loves to hear it, and pretends JD didn't do it well enough the first time and makes him do it again. Elvis would stand back from the microphone, still wearing the guitar, and would hold his arms out on either side and bend his knees with his feet wide apart, as if he were pretending to be an aeroplane, and he'd yell ''Wo!" in appreciation - sounding small and different because he was off the microphone. Then he'd pull towards him on an imaginary joy stick and fly his aeroplane upwards with JD's rising voice his face expressing extreme tension, until he was upright again. He would smile in real appreciation at JD. When JD's voice became hoarse, perhaps with a touch of the flue they all had, Elvis would say, "JD's lost one of his engines."
When he introduced JD, he again took his hand. Introducing Charlie he puts his right arm out horizontally and rests his wrist on Charlie's head, and in this show Charlie looked up at him with an expression of devotion.
A girl in the audience pulled down Elvis' head to speak to him or he kissed, by pulling down on both ends of his scarf. This time all the scarves were white or pale blue and were just like the ones available at Colonel's Souvenir stand. They had Elvis' autograph embroidered on them. I think he also had some dark blue ones to wear with different coloured suits.
Elvis gave an irritable flick at the microphone cord to get the loose yards of it out of his way. He gave a meaningful look towards the wings. "I take it there is someone there responsible for keeping in all the slack chord when it's not needed"?
On 'If You Talk In Your Sleep', for this and every show, he would start off but putting his chin on his chest and bending his knees and doing very slow slithering sideways steps across the stage to create a brooding sort of atmosphere to suit the song. Just before beginning the song he would look up from this and grin at one of the members of his back-up groups as if to say he knew it was faintly humorous to start off like that.
in 'Polk Salad Annie' he would do violent sideways kicks to the rhythm not always at the same point, but where he felt it appropriate on that particular day. On the lines "Sock a little Polk Salad to me", he would do three different kinds of karate blow to the rhythm, with his elbow and with his fist facing palm up and then palm down.
He was given a very long loop of white heads and was examining them and was about to put them round his neck when he thought of something, smiled at the audience and changed his mind.
This was one of the best of Elvis' shows I've ever seen. He sang hard and well, was energetic, didn't puzzle the audience by fooling around in a way they couldn't follow, and maintained a happy and good-natured control throughout. It was one of those shows where the whole thing went over beautifully and there was that wonderful warm rapport between Elvis and his audience. At the end of the show, there was an almost complete standing ovation. Not only did the people at the front and round the ramp stand, but everyone all the way to the back and everyone in the balcony. The feeling produced by this kind of show is a unique and quite moving experience. Elvis gave out many scarves and ended the show in a very happy mood, full of self-confidence as he acknowledged the audience fixing and thanking the audience to both sides of the ramp as well as in the body of the room and in the balcony. It's very gratifying to see him make the audience happy in a show like this, and to go away so happy himself. This show worked just perfectly and Elvis was inspired. He ended very chuffed by it all that night.
