Condofire

Dave: In honor of Elvis‘ 30 year anniversary of playing at Vancouver’s Empire stadium (August 30th) we have a guest speaker who was actually there. Here’s some info on some events.

Bettye: WOW GADZOOKS YIPPEE YAH GOOD GRIEF ETC . GREAT WOW WOW BRING OUT THE TRUMPETS FRENCH HORNS CYMBALS BRASS BANDS DANCING BEARS AND OF COURSE THE CLOWNS.THERE HAS TO BE CLOWNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have to tell you that I have had phone calls, emails, letters, cards and lots of verbal yahoo regarding the Elvis extravaganza coming to town this month. And I have to say that I am not swooning, weeping, falling down crying, or am I actually in any way excited. Because I was there. I mean there, at Empire Statdium in August of 1957. And it was like nothing else before, during or since in my life. It was the day.I remember every minute of it and it will never fade.
I fell in love with him one noon hour at school. Red Robinson came for a noon hour sock hop and I won a record. “Don’t Be Cruel”and the flip side was “Hound Dog” It was just for me and I really believed that. Innocent, pure, and so so vulnerable. I for evermore spent my $1/week allowance on his newest 45rpm release or on a fan magazine with his photo. My bedroom was wall papered with his pictures and my girlfriends in our”Babydoll”pyjama club would meet in that bedroom and I would just be there with him. I couldn’t fathom that my buddy Linda liked Ricky Nelson, my buddy Lynne liked Harry Belafonte and my other friend Cathy liked baseball. I just knew that it was him and me.
Í also recall the evening that Elvis was going to be on the Ed Sullivan Variety Show. Of course “parents”and other such uninformed people were saying that he was too sexy and too suggestive for young girls, …whatever that all meant….and I had to ask my dad’s special permission to watch that segment of the show. He came on and had such a beautiful smile, and Ed Sullivan said”He is a very very nice boy”…..that was for sure!!!! The tv was only allowed to show his upper body, because he “wiggled”too much. These statements went way above my head. He was Elvis and he was perfect.
Then he was in a movie. It came to Vancouver and my friend Janis and I doubled dated with two unmemorable characters. The movie was”Love Me Tender”and I literally cried, wept, howled, and screamed all the way through the show. His acting debut was 100% successful!!! Can’t remember if Iever saw either of those two guys again.Didn’t matter one iota.
When the word was out that he was coming at the end of the PNE to Empire Stadium, I was 14 and working at Locarno Beach at the fish and chip stand. I phoned my mom and made her promise that she would buy me two tickets for that show. They were $10 each and when I babysat for 3 or 4 kids for 25 cents an hour, 10 bucks was a chunk of money. I don’t remember even thinking about the price. I do remember Red Robinson putting on a contest”Win a DATE with ELVIS”.I must have entered every day at least five times a day..and didn’t win. Heartbreak.
The day of THE SHOW I had asked my friend Lynne to go with me. She had, several weeks before, met Harry Belanfonte, her idol, on the street, and he had given her two tickets to his show, so I wanted to take her..and she was my bestest friend.
Our seats were way up high..way way way up high.So up we went..When The blue Cadillac came into the stadium, he was sitting on the back on the convertible, wearing a shiny Gold jacket. Sitting in the front seat, being ignored by my Elvis, was the obviously very ugly girl who had obviously cheated and won the date with him….if I had won, I know I would have been sitting beside him, and he would have had his arm around me…..
This is what I remember. He came on the stage and sang maybe three words…I could not sit in my seat. It was as though he was calling me, or a huge string was pulling me..I climbed out of my seat,down the aisle, down the stadium grass..and to him..along, apparently with about a trillion other girls… So I just stood at the bottom of the stage..and then he left..and someone said”Go back to your seats, or Elvis will not come back on the stage.”Back I went down the long stretch of grass, up, up, up the stairs, back to my seat. And sat down.
Then he came on again. Up I got, and fled down the aisle, the stadium green, back to him..And then he went back behind the stage. And I think that was it. I don’t remember leaving, or getting home. or the next day.
But what I do remember was it was the best concert I had ever been to, and now today, I can still say that..yes, after Elton,(and shaking his hand) Bob Dylan, Sting, Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison,And many others, That concert was the one. Because it was Elvis. No one had ever made me think or feel or dream that way. He awakened all the things in me that parents were worried about and IT WAS WONDERFUL
Now here it is 2007, wow, 50 years later, and I am all excited and kinda shaky and feel a little hot and shook up and thinking he can still make me feel this way….Yikes!
So no, I won’t be there for the impersonators, or the clowns, or the brass bands this month..I will just crank up some of my old goodies and me and Him will just groove.