King Elvis: His Legion Of Fans Showed Their Colors At The Bayfront Concert
by Steve Gunn
The Evening Independent
September 4, 1976

Sandra Findlay. a 23-year-old Clearwater resident showed up for the King's concert about three hours early.

Just to make sure she got to her reserved second row seat. And maybe get a new Cadillac if the King decided to show up early and start handing out small gifts.

"If somebody tries to take my seat, boy..." she threatened with a smile.

Sandra is pretty much your basic Elvis Presley fan, a species that flocked to his Bayfront Center concert last night as if they were lemmings heades toward the sea. Her story could be mimegraphed and pasted on hundreds of other young and middle-aged women at last night's selloout concert.

She had alreadt see all "the" movies, had the standard Elvis scrapbook and could giggle the standard comments about the King.

"Boy, when they put him together they didn't leave anything out. He's got everything," she said "he acts and looks great." She could go on and did.

But the point is clear and was echoed by her friend Fran Seward, also of Clearwater.

"When they made him, they didn't leave out anything, he's like a Greek god," she said.

It could be from a "grade B" movie if they weren't serious.

As was the lady from Jacksonville who was following the King across Florida or the two ladies from miami who came on a trip sponsored by a radio station. The list could go on to lengths many times the size of Elvis's wallet and pot belly.

But last night's gathering at Bayfront Center was what you might call a "discreet" one.

The one or two serious scalpers were discreet, prices not being outrageous and their presence not too noticeable. People were dressed discreetly, in skirts and pant suits or leisure suits for the men, no blue jeans. They drove to Bayfrontin discreet cars leaving the parking lot so full of 1969 Buicks as to make it look like a Central Avenue used car lot. The hawkers pushing $3 programs and Elvis buttons ("so he can be close to your heart, honey," one man told a little girl) were quiet and not too obnoxious. Police were discreet and tried to stay out of the way.

Well, there was that plain-looking young girl who said her name was Robin and had silver painted fingernails, gold glitter glued to her arm and "Elvis" written in glitter across her blue shirt. But most of the concert-goers wore clothes acceptable in most churches or business offices.

Outside the arena, where Elviswould be entering through a back door a small band of young people waited for him patiently hoping to catch just a glimpse of the King.

"I can't pay to go in," one young man said "but everybody at school at school was talking about him."

The King had come to town.

Courtesy of Archie Bald