12th November 1970, Thursday

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Graeme
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12th November 1970, Thursday

Post by Graeme » Sun Feb 14, 2016 3:09 am

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Alan
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Re: 12th November 1970, Thursday

Post by Alan » Thu Nov 19, 2020 4:46 pm

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Alan
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Re: 12th November 1970, Thursday

Post by Alan » Sat Dec 10, 2022 12:31 am

ANONYMOUS FAN: I, along with my girlfriend — and wife-to-be — and sister and brother-in-law, saw the show. We came down from Vancouver BC, taking a chance that we might get tickets. But, of course, when we arrived. the marquee-sign said, “Elvis — sold out.” We were going to turn back, but I said let’s talk to the ticket-guy at the booth and double-check. Well, he said there were a few tickets available, but that they were on the right-side of the stage and he couldn’t guarantee Elvis would turn around. They were $5 apiece and we said, “We’ll take them!” Anyhow, to make a long story short, Elvis did turn around and walked up the side of the stage shaking hands. When he was right beside my girlfriend, I told her to stand up and kiss him. But she was too shy, I guess. I could have shook his hand, but I was heeding the warning they gave about not getting out of our seats before the show started. I forgot our camera, wouldn’t you know it? Elvis was and is the greatest.
      


      
Presley’s Show No Blockbuster
      
      By Janine Gressel
      The Seattle Times
      November 13, 1970
      
All of the conditions were right for Elvis Presley’s concert at The Coliseum last night to have been a smash-hit. The concert was sold out and the audience was ‘up’ for it to the point of frenzy. But, despite Elvis’ personal magnetism and incredible popularity, the show was disappointing. His performance was short — perhaps 40 minutes, but it seemed much less. He sang only 14 songs and, of those, only six were original Elvis hits.
      
Much of the time was spent with the star horsing around on stage — jokingly putting down Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck and Glen Campbell (for no apparent reason), continually striking ridiculously ‘dramatic’ poses (which elicited wild screams from the mesmerized fans), plucking the hat from a policeman standing by the stage, and strutting back and forth with the hat on his head. These actions were mildly amusing, but definitely not worth the price of a ticket.
      
The tone of the concert was strange, as Elvis clearly had the talent and ability to have been putting on a top-notch show. But, instead of satisfying the audience with his music, he relied on blatant gimmickry to garner applause. His repertoire of original hits was pitifully small considering the number of successes he has had over the past 15 years. He sang ‘Love Me Tender’ (much better than when he first recorded it), ‘How Great Thou Art’, ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, “Hound Dog’ and ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’. Two others — “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’ and ‘“The Wonder Of You’ — were recent Elvis hits, but were originally made popular by other singers, Cher Bono and Ray Peterson respectively.
      
The others, such as ‘Sweet Caroline’, ‘Polk Salad Annie’ and ‘Johnny B. Goode’,were all made famous by other performers and are not chart-hits for Elvis. There is, of course, nothing wrong with doing other artists’ material — and Elvis did well on his arrangements. But, for a performer with such an enormous list of credits to his own name, to offer so few of them to his audience is, in a sense, cheating. His fans undoubtedly came to hear Elvis sing Elvis songs. In that respect they were short-changed.
      
The audience was in such an emotional state from the time Elvis took the stage that all he had to do was look at a section of the crowd and the fans seated there went wild. Despite the shortcomings of the concert, he undoubtedly would have received a standing ovation — just because he was there. But the audience was cheated of that gesture, too. At the close of ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’, and without warning, Elvis suddenly bolted from the stage. The house- lights went on and an anonymous voice announced, “Elvis has left the building.” As if in a state of shock, the crowd was silent. Everyone looked around as if to say, “Where did he go?” With a mass shrug of the shoulders, the audience quietly filed from the hall. What we had seen of Elvis Presley was pretty good, but it was far from satisfying.
      


      
Elvis Still Has It
      By Stephanie Miller
      Seatile Post-Intelligencer
      November 13, 1970
      
The houselights darkened. The flashbulbs started popping. Squeals started to swell, and on swaggered Elvis Presley to the Coliseum stage last night wearing slinky white bell- bottoms and white buck shoes, a western fringe hanging down his laccd-up shirt and a Kelly green sash dangling
from the swinging hips that made him famous.
      
He put on a mere 40 minute show for the more than 15,000 fans, but it was a heckuva show. He kept the swoons to a minimum, letting the songs roll off one after the other, and held the crowd in his ever-loving grasp throughout.
      
He still has the sultry, down-in-the-throat quality that made “Love Me Tender, Love Me Do’ his heart-breaking trademark. Stalking from one end of the stage to the other, he conducted the band, the lead guitarist and the octet of vocalists that introduced the show through 15 years of songs.
      
‘You Don't Have To Say You Love Me’, ‘Please Caroline’, ‘Go, Johnny, Go’, and ‘Ain’t It Funny’ — he rolled them off with the casc of a pro. And he never lost contact with the audience. “You've all seen me, now I want to look at you,” he drawled as he asked that the houselights be turned up a moment. If the teens started to squeal, he cracked a joke mid-medley about how Glen Campbell would sing the song, or pointed to some fellow walking down the aisle. He kept it real, in spite of his magnetic_presence.' ’
      
He didn’t take himself seriously, and that’s just what the crowd, which took in teens to totterers, liked about him. Introducing himself as Johnny Cash, he launched into an imitation of the bumps and grinds Tom Jones enjoys. He's got humor. And he still has the Elvis charisma. He threw his head around during ‘Heartbreak Hotel” until his coal black hair covered his forehead. And he threw his green neck-scarf to a blonde in the front row. But it didn’t get out of hand. He came to sing, and sing he did. He gave a new flavor to the greats from the *50s — “You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog’ and ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ — and sang with appealing richness the gospel tune which won him a Grammy in 1966 [sic], ‘How Great Thou Art’.
      
That was his serious tune and, when he was dissatisfied with the entrance by his back-up singers — the Sweet Inspirations (black female quartet) and the Imperials (male quartet) — he started the song again. He’s a musician, too, in spite of the gimmicks of letting his voice trail off into nowhere and garbling the words for the sake of swagger.
      
His voice has matured measurably since the days when he pulled microphones nearly out from the cords. It’s still sexy, but it’s also mellow and trained. And that’s nice to know, that he’s relying on his voice for drawing power. His comeback is attracting all ages, from 15-year-olds who have never heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ to 30-year- olds who have.
      
The advance entertainers — the singers and the comedian. Sammy Shore, who are accompanying him on both his six-city tour and his stint in Las Vegas — did much to heighten the atmosphere.
      
When the squealers in the crowd scrambled to the stage as soon as Elvis sang his last note, the PA system announced that he had left the building. That green scarf he threw them was a teaser.
      


      
KATHY WESTMORELAND: After Portland, we went on to Seattle and Elvis was in an exuberant mood. I recall him standing up in the plane to get everyone’s attention. He had a paper in his hand. “Look, everybody, my record sales have just hit a total of 300 million. The Beatles have sold 60 million records. No-one will ever catch up with me now.” We all rejoiced at the news.
      


      
BOB DALZIEL: I have been an Elvis fan since 1961 when I was eleven. For me, Elvis was at his best in the 1950s and early 1960s. I never was too much into the jumpsuited Elvis but, when he started touring again, I realised that this was a rare chance to see him live on stage.
      
I actually managed to see him twice, both times in 1970. The first occasion was in Las Vegas on February 17. Then, when I heard that he was coming
to Seattle, I purchased tickets as soon as I could. As I recall, they cost somewhere in the region of $10.00 each.
      
One thing that happened before the Seattle show was that, while driving in the middle of town, a black limousine overtook me. I caught up and recognised Colonel Parker — who was sitting in the outside front passenger seat — as one of the six people inside it. I followed the car until it reached a very expensive restaurant called Ivor’s Seafood House but, because Elvis was not there, I did not stay around very long. I am usually good at taking pictures but I do not have any photos of Elvis in concert. The only thing that I do have is a blurry picture of my young brother and his friend holding up the tickets for the Seattle show. Because we were sitting so far back in the auditorium, I knew that it would be impossible to take decent photographs. I also knew that cameras were not allowed and I did not want to risk having mine confiscated at the door. However, I did manage to sneak in a small tape-recorder and recorded the concert using a very cheap cassette. In fact, I had to turn the tape over while Elvis was in the middle of singing ‘Funny How Time Slips Away’ and so part of that song is missing on my recording.
      
Even though we were sitting way back and really could not see much, the show itself was exciting because Elvis was, and still is, the greatest entertainer ever. I also recall that the sound was not too bad at all and that the concert seemed to go by pretty fast.
      


      
ALAN HANSON: I first saw Elvis Presley in 1970 — I mean, I really sawn him. Not as an image in some magazine or on a theatre-screen. I mean, live — in the same building. In September 1970, I was 21 and had just started my senior year at the University of Washington in Seattle. One day, a fraternity brother told me he’d heard on the radio that Elvis was coming to Seattle. I guess he thought I might be interested because of the Elvis music that continually blasted through the walls of my room. Within minutes of hearing the news, I was in my car heading downtown to buy a ticket. It was surreal to think I was actually going to see and hear Elvis. I became an Elvis fan in 1962 at the age of 13, and I had
long since conceded that the closest I would ever get to him would be a front-row seat at a movie-theatre. Even when Elvis started playing Las Vegas in 1969, it didn’t occur to me that he would actually start touring the country again. But he was actually coming to Seattle, and to me it seemed like a dream come true.
      
The evening of November 12, 1970, I had a good seat in the Seattle Coliseum — second-level, close in, stage-right. Forty years later, I dog
have the slightest remembrance of the opening acts. According to reports, Sammy Shore did his comedy bit, and the Sweet Inspirations and the Imperials sang a few numbers. I tolerated them then, but my memory has completely excised them ever since.
      
Actually, I don’t remember a whole lot about Elvis’ show either, which is strange considering that it was one of the most significant events in my life to that point. He was dressed all in white — I recall that — and his voice was strong and clear. Strange, though, that I can only remember the title of one song that he sang that evening. He stood still, back to the audience, then suddenly swung around and broke into ‘You Don't Have To Say You Love Me’.
      
I can see that image clearly in my mind. I also remember Elvis saying something to the effect that he had played Seattle long before anyone had ever heard of Engelbert Humperdinck. And I also recall being somewhat disappointed with how Elvis moved on stage. I was expecting a toned-down version of his fifties-style gyrations. Instead, he simply prowled back and forth.
      
For me and other long-time fans, Elvis had become a mystical, even spiritual, presence in our lives. Just the opportunity to see him perform, even if he wasn’t on top of his game that particular evening, felt like a reward for remaining loyal to Elvis through the dismal ‘movie years’.
      


      
BARB DOBIE: The next day we headed north on 1-5 to Seattle for the show that night. Upon arriving, we heard that Elvis' new film, That's The Way It Is, was having its Northwest premier in Renton, Washington that afternoon. Well, we couldn’t miss that!
      
We quickly made our way to Renton just in time for an afternoon show-time. Soon after the film started, we noticed that Myrna and Sylvia of the Sweet Inspirations came in followed by Ronnie Tutt and Reg (a guitarist).
      
As always, with my trusty tape-recorder in hand (I had already taped the Portland show and was planning on doing the same at the Seattle show), I rolled tape. Thank goodness I did as you can hear the comments and laughter from the Sweet Inspirations and Ronnie as they sat through their first viewing of the film. When the show was finished, we obtained their autographs — they were so friendly. We parted company telling them that we were from Canada and that we’d see them at the show in Seattle that evening.
      
Upon our arrival at the Coliseum in Seattle we were a bit disappointed that our seats weren’t as close to the stage as in Portland, but we got over that right away when the show started. We were off to the left of the stage as you look at it and up one level, so they weren’t really bad seats at all. However, I couldn’t film in Portland as I was knee- to-knee with a policeman. Just before the show, the place was electric and, as Elvis took to the stage, the whole arena lit up. As in Portland, the show was great, but we were disappointed that Elvis was only on stage for forty minutes and that he didn’t sing our special favourites, ‘Suspicious Minds” and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’. Just the same, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
      
Portland, Renton and Seattle created a lot of great memories and wonderful times to last a lifetime.
      


      
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