1956Newspaper Articles
CONCERT DATE: March 18, 1974. Richmond, VA.
Richmond Times
March 19, 1974
Music
by Barbara Green
A Different speaker setup improved the sound and an almost puckish attitude on the part of the star improved the show when Elvis Presley visited Richmond for the second time within a week.
Fresh and flush from triumphal performances in his hometown of Memphis last weekend., he entertained a light-hearted audience last night at the Coliseum.
His audience was largely young people - teenagers and persons only a few years older - who were much too young to remember vintage Presley . He was at his artistic peak when many of them were barely in kindergarden.
But they had gotten the word from somewhere and squealed appreciatively right on cue.
Presley responded with considerable charm. He appeared looser and more comfortable than he was a week ago, kidding with his band and dancing through a couple of songs with some nimble footwork.
The sound mix enabled his voice to predominate over a more subdued orchestral and vocal accompaniment, and the male trio that accompanied him on "All Shook Up" managed to bring back memories of the Jordanaires.
PRESLEY CLOWNED his way through "Fever" pretending that he couldn't make his legs stop twitching, repeating syllables that struck his fancy to the point of nonsense and being genuinely funny.
"He's feeling his oats tonight," was the way one appreciate listener put it.
He brought some freshness and enthusiasm to the same tired old material and introduced a new song, "Help Me," a hym with a catchy chorus that he recorded recently.
On a couple of songs, including "Trying To Get To You," he pulled out the stops and sang, really sang, without noticeable interference from his backup band and singers, though numbers like that are getting fewer and farther between.
Presley has settled into the comfortable position of programmed popular singer. With the following he has built up over the years, chances are he won't pull any musical surprises in the future. Fact is, he really doesn't have to.
CONCERT DATE: March 18, 1974. Richmond, VA.
The Richmond News Reader
March 19, 1974
Holler...Scream...Have A Fit
by Bernie Ghiselin
Deborah King clutched the white scarf around her neck and staggered about, half lost. Her tears were washing away her eye make-up and her mouth was locked in a smile of amazement.
Her friends shrieked, "Debbie," "Debbie" from far off. The house lights were up and the crowd swarned to the exists and Debbie cried and staggered about.
She was ecstatic and lost and floating. Purely afloat.
A few moments earlier she had fought her way to the stage and Elvis Presley had thrown her the scarf. And he had touched her.
Yes, touched her. Her. Debbie. Age 22. Who drove from Prince George again this week to see Elvis. Had hoped. Planned. Got up close. And got touched.
Did you kiss him?
"No, But he touched me."
How do you feel right now?
"Oh, great. Great. Oh, I feel wonderful."
She stepped over a low barriertowards the seat where her friends were calling her name and she said, "Nobody's getting this off my neck" and tied her trophy, her talisman more tightly.
In droves came the Debbies and Normas and Marys of nearly every age to squeal and clap and moan as Elvis Presley bumped and groaned his mangroan.
COLISEUM FULL
The Richmond Coliseum was literally packed to the rafters. Every section. Every seat. The audience was obedient and attentive and involved.
Mrs. Joyce Davis, 23, left Kinsale , in Westmoreland County, at 5:30 p.m. yesterday and a half-hour before the show started sat impatiently near the front and said, "I can't believe I got this close."
And Mrs. H. J. Parker, 47, of Mechanicsville, said "I just like him as a person, I suppose. He's down to earth, to me he is," she said.
Mrs. Hazel Pearce, 27, of Petersburg did not bring her husband this time. She said once was enough for him. "I swooned the last time he (Elvis) was here, and I guess I'll swoon this time," she said.
The men in the crowd were seemingly in the roles of stoic chaperons. "My wife dragged me down here," said one man "I can't believe the price of these tickets."
Does Elvis have sex appeal?
"Not to me," said Harvey Roberts, 36, of Chesterfield County. "I'd like to have his damn money. Everybody does, I guess."
A group of women in their early 20s waited excitedly in row nine. Would they try to get to the stage?
"Yes, definetely," said Carroll Coffey of Richmond "I've been conditioning all week. Police or no police. I'm going to climb right over them."
"WHO CARES?"
The women were asked whether the fact Elvis is approaching 40 years of age bothered them.
"Who cares?" said one.
"He's fantastic," said another. "If he was 89 and looked that good we'd come to see him."
Mrs. Norma McGlocklin, 31, a wife and mother, addmitted she is a dedicated Elvis fan.
"He's my man," said the vivacious brunette. "My heart is beating so fast I can't stand it. I can talk about Elvis all night."
She wore an Elvis button on her blouse, had just bought an Elvis key chain. At home, her walls are plastered with pictures of Elvis, she said.
She was settling down for her seventh Elvis concert, has all his records, has seen all movies and last week took her 9-year-old daughter to see and hear Elvis at the Coliseum.
"I'm gonna jump up and down and clap and holler and scream like I did Tuesday night and have a fit and I felt so tired when I went home I felt like a truck ran over me," she said.
She knows how many times Elvis has been married, where he lives, where he works, the whole thing. She doesn't have an autograph yet.
But she carries a picture of Elvis in her wallet. In the picture Elvis looks like he's singing "Don't Be Cruel"
"I'd like to wipe off the sweat off him, I don't care what he's singing," she said.