Just me and Elvis

"EPIC" is just exactly that

It was just me and Elvis.

On a sunny, windy Thursday afternoon in March, just eight cars in the parking lot at Tallahassee’s Fallschase CMX Theaters, I took the long, quiet walk down to Cinema 11 at the end of the hallway and took a seat in the middle of the theater.

I sat there by myself and watched the magic unfold up on the screen, sort of a command performance, you might say.

Just me and Elvis.

As we know, The King more or less abdicated his throne 48 years ago by dying in an upstairs bathroom at his home in Graceland in Memphis. For those of us who always appreciated him and his music, hey, how many chances are you going to have at a command performance?

Just you and The King?

Elvis Presley is back - on the silver screen in a big way!

Now, it wasn’t as if I could talk to him or wave to him or wait for him to hand me one of his friggin’ scarves. And yeah, I didn’t quite get the jewelry — the multiple rings on his microphone-holding hand, the gold Egyptian-style bracelet that I’m quite sure was solid gold, the millions of sequins on the cape (?) and various jumpsuits.

The first time you see him all dressed in a white jumpsuit, giant Arthurian collars, a v-neck top with fringe, quietly walking backstage amid a small entourage, it’s as if he actually came from another planet. He does not look, in that moment, like a regular person. And of course, he’s not.

I mean, we’re talking about ELVIS PRESLEY. Did you think he was going to walk on stage in a pair of ripped jeans and flannel shirt like Neil Young? If you’re The King, dammit, you ought to dress regally, right?

And there he was. Right before me. Just me. Even though the theater was otherwise empty, he performed as if it was the very last time he might be on a stage, as if he was demonstrating to one and all — well, in this case, one — that nobody could put on a show quite like Elvis Presley and that magic in his voice, that sound still pouring out of Sirius Radio 75 every single day, is just as real as it ever was.

Yeah, these filmed performances might have been in Las Vegas, not a location where its performers are generally noted for their intensity and commitment, and there was a day early on when Elvis flopped out there. The world and Vegas weren’t quite ready for him.

But in 1970, especially, when he came roaring out of these mind-numbing movie sets and found his way back up performing in front of people, Jesus, it’s a wonder some of the folks in the front row didn’t catch on fire.

Yeah, I’ve seen Bruce Springsteen in concert at least a half-dozen times, same for U2 and Bob Dylan, The Clash, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, The Band, Rod Stewart, Roxy Music, The Who and on and on. None of these artists pushed themselves on stage quite the way you see Elvis do here, particularly in his white jump suit period, his first Vegas stint.

Now, Springsteen shows are long and magical and Bruce absolutely gives you 110%. But at the end of the day, he and you know it’s a show, you want to have a good time and he does, too. In the collected performances that make up Baz Luhrmann’s “EPIC,” we see Presley trying to justify his extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime, world-changing success, song by song. It’s as if he signed up for this Vegas residency to show the world that yeah, he was still great, he always was and it’s about damn time that the world caught up with him.

He’s modest, playful, singing one song while wearing a blue bra over his head that some adoring fan liberated for him. He is so committed to putting these songs across as ferociously as he could, it seemed like he had all this trapped inside him on those soundstages and movie sets and now, he couldn’t help but let it loose.

And wait until you see him sit down on a stool, pick up a black Gretsch guitar and pick through first, “Little Sister,” one of his 60’s hits, then effortlessly segue into The Beatles’ “Get Back,” a current hit in 1970. Sure, he could be current. And with the right song, one like “Burning Love,” say, you’d better stand back because here comes Elvis over the radio one more time.

Luhrmann gets in a nifty little dig at Colonel Tom Parker, too. As he shows a clip of Presley’s longtime manager, he cleverly plays a clip of Elvis singing “He’s the devil in disguise…”

What I wasn’t prepared for, and yes, I’ve seen dozens of Elvis documentaries, saw Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” in this same theater (and watched it at home a couple times, too), was how strikingly handsome the guy was and I never really noticed — me, the observant writer — how truly blue his eyes were. Go ahead and watch “EPIC - Elvis Presley In Concert” and tell me you don’t notice the same things, I dare you.

Luhrmann was somehow able to resurrect these clips — and resurrect is exactly the right word in this case — meld them together in a sort of concert film/fever dream that brings prime rockin’ Elvis Presley back right before your eyes and ears. Much of this footage was recorded for Elvis documentaries in 1970 - “Elvis: That’s The Way It Is” and 1972 “Elvis On Tour” — and since I’d seen both already (and had the DVD for the first one), there were some clips that were familiar.

But I never got to see them — and him — alone in a movie theater, Elvis up on a bright, giant horizontal screen, putting on the kind of show that he knew would leave his audiences saying, “Man, ELVIS, huh? Wow.”

Usually, going to a movie theater is a communal experience. Everyone laughs or cries at the right moment and you spend a little time together sharing a film and you feel part of a whole.

I didn’t have that at Fallschase Cinema 11 and honestly, I didn’t need it. It was a command performance.

Just me and Elvis. That was plenty.