Elvis Put on Such a ‘Boring’ Show That ‘People Were Walking Out All Over the Place’
Elvis Presley liked to talk conversationally with his audience during shows. He did this more frequently as the 1970s wore on. While many of his fans were dedicated enough to laugh along with Elvis’ monologues, others couldn’t take it. Elvis’ bodyguards recalled one show so dull that the audience fled in droves.
Elvis spent so much time talking to his audience that they walked out of a show
By the 1970s, everyone in Elvis’ entourage was worried about him. He consumed so many pills that he often forgot his performances. When he was onstage, everyone in his circle watched with horror.
“There have been actual shows that he has done that he can’t remember,” his bodyguard Sonny West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? “The audience must know something is going on. Sometimes, he gets up there and talks and talks to the audience instead of singing. He will give his philosophies on life, and it’s very boring. People go there to see the old Elvis magic.”
West recalled one show where Elvis bored the audience so thoroughly that they walked out.
“One night he did a damn karate exhibition for twenty-eight minutes straight in Las Vegas,” West said. “People were walking out all over the place. I never saw a word in the press about it. He lives a charmed life. Sometimes, he will forget the sequence of songs, and he will forget the lyrics to songs. Other times, there are songs scheduled to be sung, and he will just refuse to do them.”
Elvis fans left another show in a state of confusion
In 1977, fans left another concert in droves. He looked to be in pain and left the show mid-performance to go to the bathroom.
“At the finale, there was no ovation, and patrons exited shaking their heads and speculating on what was wrong with him,” said one Variety review, per the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick.
Priscilla Presley thought her ex-husband was bored
Priscilla Presley watched Elvis rant to the audience in concerts after their divorce. She found it incredibly upsetting and felt that all his diversions from music were a way of expressing his boredom.
“The style, grace, and pride that for the past eight years had been the hallmark of a Presley live performance now bordered on self-parody,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “Frustrated with the lack of challenge of each passing show, Elvis resorted to sheer flamboyance, symbolized by his costumes, each more elaborate than the one before, loaded with an overabundance of fake stones, studs, and fringes. There were voluminous capes and cumbersome belts to match.”
When she saw him perform in the mid-1970s, she felt she was watching a different person.
“This was [so] out of character, for someone who had so much pride, you know — everything he was against, he was displaying,” she said. “It was like watching a different person.”
How to get help: In the U.S., contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
