Elvis Shakes, Crowd Screams
By Linda Herskowitz
Providence Journal Bulletin
June 23, 1974

The lights dim and the screaming begins. It starts spontaneously and builds into a frenzy as trumpets, electric guitars, and drums blast th eopening, momentous bars of "Thus Spake Zarathustra," the theme from "2001."

As he approaches the stage, thousands of camera bulbs are flashing and in the dark civic center auditorium, the exploding lights create a psychedelic effect, making the screamers who wave their arms appear as if they are flailing in slow motion.

Elvis Presley walks onto the stage, dressed in a white suit with a sequined bird in flight, a glittering wing on either side of his revealed chest. It is the same outfit he wears in the poster "suitable for framing" which Presley's advance man urges the audience to buy.

Presley bows, takes a mikein his hand and begins jerking his body, one leg behind him, the other thrust in front of him and balanced on his toes. It is the charasteric pose he strikes that guarantees collective sexual frenzy which sociologists might study if it occurred in the heart of the jungle.

Elvis is in complete control. As if he were manipulating a sound effect machine with his body, Elvis can elicit screams from any one area in the arena, just by jerking a leg in that direction.

He turns behind him and 50 young girls sitting in the balcony strain forward until they almost fall over the railing.

"Honey," he turns to the balcony behind him, "I shall be up there is a MOMENT," and the balcony goes wild.

"I'll make the rounds in a little while," he adds to the rest of the crowd, and a collective scream answers him.

Charley, whom Presley introduced as a friend who now sings harmony, is a short, compact man in a royal blue outfit who spends most of his time on stage supplying and resupplying Elvis with chiffon neck scarves, in white and blue and purple.

when he had sung his last song, women streamed toward the stage. Elvis was throwing scarves faster than Charley could drape them around his neck. Several Providence policemen who had positioned themselves against the front of the raised platform to protect the performer, found themselves pinned against the stage as hundreds of women - a few middle aged = pressed against the stage. Elvis crouched at the front of the platform, shaking and kissing the hands that surrounded him.

The last scarf was caught by a gray-haired man in his 60's who had been motioning wildly toward his wife, who apparently wanted one.

Meanwhile, there were about 150 ticket holders who were less than ecstatic when they found that two sets of tickets had been sold for their seats.

Civic Center authorities said they had received many calls from people, ;argely in Johnston and Attleboro, who complained their money orders had been cashed, but tickets were never received. Those tickets were mailed, however, Civic Center authorities say, and were perhaps atolen in the mail. The ticket holders were promised duplicate tickets for the seats they purchased but when they arrived at their seats, the holders of the original tickets were already seated, in many cases, and refused to move.

Police and postal authorities questioned the holders of original tickets, and were told they had been bought "from a friend of a friend" or from according to the Civic Center spokesman.

He [..] investigation of the possible theft of tickets will be conducted.

Courtesy of REX's 1970s W.E.N.S.W #204