JD’s Elvis Concert (the one I decided not to go to)
When the intermission goes 20 minutes longer than scheduled, the tension builds. What’s going on?
The point of the concert is to have shitty seats. On stage they’ve arrange the TCB band, that is Elvis’ back up singers, guitar players, drummers, etc. On the screens above in the stadium, Elvis croons to the hits as recorded from his various live performances anywhere from ‘57 Ed Sullivan to ’73 “Aloha from Hawaii” (a television event with more watchers than the moon landing).
The result is that you feel like you are at a concert with shitty seats where you can only make out that there is a band, but can’t see who’s who.
So it’s 45 minutes over and they begin to play the them from “2001: A Space Odysy” The crowd is gittery with anticipation.
The lights fade to black and from the zamboni shed a man emerges. The another, then another. On the screen the diehards recognize them as Elvis’ best friends and his later Paul Bearers. What’s going on? JD reported feeling a little bit short of breath with a racing heart.
Then a black limo slowly pulls out. What the--?
Everyone says the same thing.
No, no, it can’t be. He’s dead. But ohmygod, what if he really wasn’t and tonight would be the night? Could it be? The limo emerges and the bearers walk it in. The audience collectively peeks into the windows and checks one another to make sure it’s OK to think that maybe tonight would be the night.
Then, nothing happens, but JD finds Tommy, who is with the rest of our friends from Memphis. As it turns out, they just so happen to have an extra VIP pass.
Within minutes, JD is backstage, and escorted to the party upstairs where he is one of maybe a dozen people who is not either in a band who a band members’ mother.
When Pricilla Presley shakes JD’s hand, she smiles and thanks him for thanking her “for keeping all of this going.” JD and Tommy walk away.
“Oh man, that is the woman Elvis married.” JD tries to convince himself.
“No, JD,” our 49 year old banker friend tells him, “she fucked elvis.”