15th November 1970, Sunday

[Graeme]

Day number 13096Site Date Map

Yesterday << 15th November 1970, Sunday >> Tomorrow

Back

[Alan]

[Alan]

I've put some comments in the database for this show which appears under the song listing.
The audio was used from another show as no audio from this show has yet surfaced.
It's used to show the song Elvis is singing and so enables those songs to be listed as being sung at this show.
Elvis had almost unique body language and moves depending on the song he was singing and so those moves have become his signature style for a particular song.
The audio is not perfectly synched, but serves the purpose.
I did not synch or add the audio to this footage, I've only polished the video side of things a little bit.

[Alan]

[Alan]

Mega Fan SUE WIEGERT:- Elvis did a concert in San Diego that same weekend and Gloria and I drove down for that along with several other local fans. We saw Colonel Parker before the show, and asked him if we could see Elvis off at the airport the next morning. He said he wouldn’t still be in town then, so he didn’t know what the rules would be, but he told us to wait for a minute, and then he came back and ordered us to Elvis’ dressing-room. He opened the door at the same time that he knocked on it, saying “Elvis.” Elvis turned around and I saw he was dressed in his white jumpsuit already.
      
Gloria ran over to kiss him but, as usual, I was shy about it and hung back. Elvis walked towards me and put his arm out, and leaned over to kiss my cheek saying, “Sue, how are you?” We talked a little about the Las Vegas movie and Elvis said, “Y”all handled your parts very well. You did a good job.” I said, “The cat did the best job” and Elvis looked at me and cracked up laughing. I meant that she did the best job of the three of us but in retrospect, I think that Elvis believed that I was including him in it, too.
      
Elvis mentioned the fringed outfit he had worn in Los Angeles and said he’d wanted it for special effect. He seemed a little perturbed about all
the trouble the fringes had been causing, and he demonstrated how they had gotten tangled in his microphone cord. I said, “Yes, Elvis, we know:
we were there.” He gave me a very dirty look as though I didn’t have any sympathy for his plight.
      
During the performance, Elvis sat down on one of the front speakers so they put the spotlight on him; he said to put it on the piano-player so they
moved the spotlight and then he said playfully, “Don’t leave me sittin' here in the dark, man. Put the light on me!” The confused light-man put the spotlight back on Elvis. As he was talking with the audience, Elvis said that he understood San Diego was a navy town. There was loud yelling and applause, and Elvis waited until it all died down before he said very quietly and impishly, “Ah was in the army myself...”
      

---

      

Elvis Still InForm, Fills Sports Arena

      By Paul Omundson
      San Diego Evening Tribune
      November 16, 1970
      
There were old men with grey hair, middle-age women with their children, and a lot of girls in their late twenties, and all were at the Sports Arena last night to see Elvis. Needless to say it was a sell-out crowd of over 15,000.
It was the first time ever that the Sports Arena has had a capacity home. The Rockets have never been able to do it. Tom Jones couldn’t do it, and even the Rolling Stones didn’t quite make it. But, for 15 years, Elvis has been drawing full-houses and it seems there is no end in sight.
      

Gospel Group Leads

The first half of the show started with the Imperials, a gospel group that sounded and even looked like the Four Freshmen. They did only two songs and then made way for the Sweet Impressions [sic], who drew an enthusiastic ovation for their rendition of the Beatles’ ‘Something’ and some wild, old-fashioned, gospcl-style shouts and stomps. Finally, to round out the first half was comedian Sammy Shore. His series of jokes on the San Diego Zoo and his cigarette routine drew a few laughs, but then he should have had sense enough to let a good thing be.
      

Humor Not Enjoyed

      
Instead, he went on and on with jokes that left many in the audience wishing they had tomatoes to throw at him. But that was all forgotten in the midst of wild screams as Elvis made his way onto the stage to start the show again. He started with ‘T Got A Woman’ and then went into a deep soft rendition of ‘Love Me Tender’. During a hard-driving version of ‘Polk Salad Annic’, Elvis brought the house down with a take-off on the dancing
styles of Tom Jones and Glen Campbell. It was quite clear that nobody had the flair for showmanship the way Elvis did. His wiggles and swirls drew gasps and squeals from the women in the audience, just as they did in the fifties. He ended every song with a dramatic leap with his arms flung out and his body shaking.
      

Old Songs Favored

      
The crowd liked his old songs best. Things like ‘Johnny B. Goode’ and ‘Heartbreak Hotel” were done in his best fifties-style. And, when he got around to ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, the crowd went wild. He ended the show with ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love’ and, before the applause had hardly begun, he was in his limousine and out of the Arena. Left behind were a lot of memories of good old rock and roll, the way it was in the beginning, by the man who started it all.
      

---

      

Elvis Remains Rock ’n’ Roll Ruler

      By Carol Olten
      The San Diego Union
      November 16, 1970
      
Elvis Presley became the first entertainer to sell out the entire Sports Arena last night in one of the sensational comeback appearances he is doing around the country after a 14-year absence from the stage. Ticket sales of 14,511 were reported by the box-office. The old ladies in their satin moiré evening-dresses came 10 peer at him last night as did the ex-bobby-soxers and the very young who were just being born when he started his career in 1954. Why did they come? Why was Elvis indeed even there? Perhaps simply because rock *n’ roll, regardless of the hokum thing it has deviated into now, is still very much where everything is — the rocking-out sport where freedom and joyousness reign.
      

CONTAGIOUS JOY

      
Elvis has a remarkable ability simply to have a good time on stage and make it a contagious thing in a crowd. He enjoys himself - jokes with his back-up acts, swishes a glass of water over his shoulder, sits down when he feels like it and even waits for a mood to come for a song — and the audience has a good time, too. Girls still chase after the tassels he flips off stage and scream when he gets physical, sending a flurry of ushers to the bottom of the stage. Indeed. why not go see Elvis? He’s fun and sexy and sings good cnough. Besides that, he’s the king of rock 'n’ roll.
Last night, Elvis could only add to his laurels. Dressed in a white jumpsuit with a neon orange sash and matching ascot with a Spiro Agnew watch [sic] on his wrist and any number of rings on his fingers, he made his way through a near hour-long set of not quite enough songs and, perhaps, a few too many gauche jokes. But they were excusable because, after all, he’s Elvis, he’s out of retirement, and he ought to be singing and saying exactly what he feels. He doesn’t owe anybody anything, really.
      

VARIETY OF SONGS

      
He brought the house down with ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ (all goldie-oldies) and almost did the same with a new song, ‘Suspicious Minds’. He came across rolling gospel thunder in ‘How Great Thou Art’ and wiggled and writhed through ‘Polk Salad Annie’. The set also included ‘The Wonder Of You’ and ‘Bridee Over Troubled Water’, among others.
Throughout all of it, Elvis was backed with a fine female vocal quartet, the Imperials, a tight six-piece rhythm section and a 23-piece orchestra under the able leadership of Joe Guercio. At exactly 10.30 p.m., Elvis, ever a polite Southern boy, thanked his audience and sped away in a big black limousine. Yes, the mystique and the magic are still there. indeed.
      

---

      

[Alan]

CBS filmed parts of the show and the signage outside. Both clips of Elvis seem to be from Polk Salad Annie