Times-Herald reporter Cheryl Tucker walked into Elvis Presley‘s Aug. 1, 1976, show at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia, with an open mind. She’d never seen Presley in concert before, and wanted to see how the rock icon could transform “a grown woman into something resembling a vocal mass of jello.”
She was not impressed. “Judging from his performance, they are screaming for what he was, what he symbolizes, rather than what he is or how he sings now,” Tucker wrote. “He performed his songs well Sunday, although he didn’t do very many. But there was no soul, no driving power behind his voice, nothing that could bring me even to contemplate a fit of frenzy. Maybe it’s the years that have taken the toll, or maybe it’s our expectations are set too high. Can Elvis realistically be expected to put a lot of energy into his act when he’s a 41-year-old king? When he’s well established in his profession? When he’s not hungry anymore? Maybe that’s the secret. Maybe you have to be hungry.”
Tucker asks some fair questions here, but there was more to the lackluster show than age and a lack of hunger. Presley was hopelessly addicted to prescription medication at this point, dealing with a wide multitude of chronic health disorders. He was also still reeling financially and emotionally from his divorce from Priscilla three years earlier, no longer flanked by several key members of his Memphis Mafia, including lifetime confidant Red West, and spending money in a reckless fashion that necessitated a grueling touring schedule simply to keep the books balanced.
He had been on tour for 10 straight days when he arrived in Hampton without a single night off, and even did two gigs at the Civic Center in Charleston, West Virginia, on July 24. For some reason, the Aug. 1 show took place at 2:30 p.m. even though there wasn’t a second performance that night. Understandably, he was drained. “We had a late show last night, and I only got two hours sleep,” he told the crowd. “Good afternoon. God that sounds strange. I just got up.”
Like hundreds of concerts before it, Presley opens with “See See Rider Blues.” He displays some energy early on, but starts to lag when the show continues with “I Got a Woman.” He’s particularly disengaged on 1950s oldies like “All Shook Up” and “Don’t Be Cruel,” but a rare moment of spontaneity breaks out during the start of the band introductions when a fan calls out for “Return to Sender.” “Please sing ‘Return to Sender’?” he asks. “If we know it.”
This was a big hit for Elvis in 1962, but it was not part of his standard setlist, and he’d only done it two previous times despite the countless shows he played after the 1968 comeback special. But he somehow breaks into an impromptu rendition along with his backing group, which includes guitarist James Burton, bassist Jerry Scheff, drummer Ron Tutt, and the vocal groups the Sweet Inspirations and J.D. Sumner’s Stamps Quartet.
The show is a little over an hour, including solo spotlight moments for many of the band members, but they somehow cram in 25 songs, many mere snippets. And grand showstoppers from the past like “Suspicious Minds,” “In the Ghetto,” and “An American Trilogy” are all absent, each probably requiring too much energy to execute.
“Following Elvis through the entire act was a flunky whose sole purpose in life seems to be to hand the star a drink between each song and make sure that there is a scarf ever draped around The Neck,” wrote Tucker. “As quickly as one is placed there, Elvis removes it and flings it at the mass of arms waving up at him. To the one who is closest, who can shove hardest or jump highest goes the relic that undoubtedly will find its way to a well-tended shrine.”
Tucker makes no mention of “Hurt,” complaining instead she didn’t get to hear “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” and “Love Me Tender,” but it’s a clear highlight. For a brief moment, the Elvis of a few years earlier — the one documented in Baz Luhrmann’s revelatory EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert concert film — returns. “I’m hurt,” he belts, genuine emotion dripping from every word. “Much more than you’ll ever know/Yes, darling, I’m so hurt/Because I still love you so.” He follows it up by sleepwalking through a truncated “Hound Dog” that falls depressingly flat.
The show ends with a perfunctory “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” that lasts only a couple of minutes. The band vamps once he leaves the stage, and we don’t even get to hear that legendary “Elvis has left the building” announcement.
“How much longer will the Elvis legend go on?” Tucker asks at the end of her review. “Will they still love him when he’s 64? When he’s even fatter and slower? Maybe the legend will die only when he does. But as I was leaving the coliseum, a little girl, no older than 10, with eyes open wide and awe in her voice announced to no one in particular ‘I almost touched him, I almost touched him.’”
For many in that crowd, standing in the same room as Elvis and possibly getting a scarf from his neck was well worth the price of admission. And it gave them memories they cherished for the rest of their lives.
But they were not getting Elvis at his best. It’s easy to blame Colonel Parker’s greed and the absurd routing that allowed him zero days off and forced him to play afternoon gigs like this one. Those were all indeed major factors. But the truth is Elvis was simply worn out. He should have been in rehab, not playing a 2:30 pm show at the Hampton Coliseum that bicentennial summer.
Four years earlier, a leaner and healthier Elvis played a much better concert at this same coliseum. A camera crew captured the entire thing for the film Elvis on Tour. The raw footage sat in a Kansas salt mine for decades, until it was retrieved by Lurhmann’s team. Now, the director is reportedly considering turning the 1972 Hampton Coliseum footage into another Elvis movie that’ll focus solely on that night.
It would be a wonderful gift to fans: That’s the Elvis the world should remember. But that doesn’t mean he had nothing to offer in the final years of his life. There are even moments during the last shows in 1977, most famously during “Unchained Melody,” when the old Elvis would briefly surface. And despite his horrifying physical decline, the King never lost his voice. It stayed with him until the very end.
