Elvis Presley Liked One of His Las Vegas Show the Best — Priscilla Reveals Which One
Elvis Presley became a fixture of Las Vegas. His concert film Elvis: That’s The Way It Is features his 1970 Vegas comeback show, and the city is still home to Elvis impersonators. Not all Vegas shows are created equal, though. Elvis had his favorites and his ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, recently spilled the beans.
Priscilla Presley was a guest on the Seven Networks Sunday Night podcast in 2017 to share memories of Elvis. She discussed his roller coaster relationship with all live shows, but named one Las Vegas show as his favorite.
Elvis Presley was always nervous about performing
Elvis seemed so effortless on stage, it’s hard to believe he got stage fright. Priscilla said that never went away, no matter how famous Elvis got.
“No, I think once he got on and once he would feel the audience, once the audience made him feel comfortable or responded to him is when he would start playing around and feeling a little more confident, but he was very, very nervous,” Presley said. “When I tell this to people, when they go, ‘Elvis never got nervous on stage,’ yes, he did. He was nervous.”
It even began backstage before Elvis went on.
“He would be in his dressing room and he didn’t want to see anyone,” Presley said. “That was the rule. You didn’t bring any guest in before the show. He had to gear up for it. He had to get into the confidence and he himself has stated. We have his quotes that ‘I’m never confident.’”
Some audiences were even hostile, Priscilla said.
“He would always test his audience out to see,” Presley said. “Some audiences, it’s more like ‘Show me what you got. Prove it to me. Why are you Elvis Presley?’ He was always checking out the audience.”
Priscilla Presley can understand what Elvis went through now
Priscilla had a career in acting in television and movies. Now that she has embarked on stage performances, she understands the challenges Elvis faced.
“Since I’ve been doing live shows — I do Panto in England and then of course I have my own show, Evening With Priscilla Presley — I get it now,” she said. “I get it which I didn’t when I was younger when he said he’d get nervous because it was hard to believe. You don’t know your audiences. They’re all different.”
This was The King’s favorite Las Vegas show
Even when Elvis had residencies in Las Vegas, there were good audiences and bad audiences.
“When he was in Vegas, you had your dinner audience at that time and then you had your last show which was around I think 12,” Presley said. “The late show was the show he liked the best because people had a few drinks, they were great audiences. When the dinner show was on, people were walking around, the waiters were still serving so you’d get different responses.”
