October 1, 1974 (8:30 pm) South Bend, IN. Notre Dame Ath Center.
TRACKLIST 2001 Theme / C.C. Rider / Dialogue / I Got A Woman - Amen-twice / Dialogue / Love Me / dialogue - It's Midnight / Big Boss Man / dialogue- Fever / Love Me Tender / dialogue/Hound Dog / Heartbreak Hotel / If You love Me / Dialogue / Bridge over Troubled Water / Dialogue / Introductions / Lawdy Miss Clawdy / All Shook Up / Teddy Bear - Don't Be Cruel / let Me Be There-with reprise / It's Now Or Never / You Gave Me A Mountain - part spoken / Johnny B. Goode / Dialogue about band aids+ rings/ The Hawaiian Wedding Song / Steamroller Blues / Can't Help Falling In Love / Closing Vamp.
Running Time: 70 minutes. Attendance 12,301 Jumpsuit: Chinese Dragon
Both nights Elvis performed 23 songs, 12 songs before the intos,1 song during the intros (lawdy miss clawdy) and 10 songs after the intros.Whilst both shows have quite a lot of Dialogue from Elvis he seems to pull back just short of saying anything that is too risky and the shows are very musical, different from 30.9.74 being the performances of HEARTBREAK HOTEL, IT'S NOW OR NEVER + STEAMROLLER BLUES.
For the October 1st show Elvis gave another 'good' show, but not quite as good as his first show in South Bend. Oldies are for the most part 'throwaways' and FEVER for instance is almost as poor as some of the excessive talking start Vegas versions-at least HERE no versions are in the 'terrible / shouldn't have been released category' 'It's Now or Never' for instance he stumbles over the lyrics at the start! Elvis(compared to recent other September shows) DOESN'T sound either overly medicated or out of control.OK too start with he isn't very good and he almost goofs up(puts his foot in what he's saying) here but thankfully stops short of that. MOST songs are performed ok-like the Olivia Newton John songs for example. Fans noticed he seemed overly irritated (although he tells a fan to 'shut-up' before 'I got a Woman' you can tell by the tone of his voice he is only kidding)later Elvis is annoyed with some sound problems that affected the show-especially when a loudspeaker blew during BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER, Elvis mentions that 'he hopes we can do a good version for you' but lacks the total commitment of last nights version. Fans were also very noisy shouting song requests and even grabbing for a scarf!. There were plenty of lighter moments however when Elvis asked J.D.Sumner (before LOVE ME) how many people the building held and was told 12,500 he quipped back 'I didn't ask your age J.D'! Quite similar to many recent Las Vegas shows Elvis gave a long monologue about his rings on his hands 'the reason he was showing you was because you helped paid for them'! Different from Vegas however was the long explanation about how a scratch on his hand became infected which was why his right hand was bandaged up. In the Joe Tunzi book Enter the Dragon there are plenty of photographs of Elvis taken on 1.10.74 wearing his Chinese Dragon Suit most show his bandaged right hand, also in about half the photos he looks paunchy and noticeably overweight since closing in Las Vegas 1 month ago. It was still Elvis singing FROM THE GUT-OUT! as he delighted fans on 1.10.74 when he performed a request version of STEAMROLLER BLUES - THE highlight of this evening along with his 'Dramatic' part Spoken version of 'You Gave Me A Mountain'. The photo book shows Elvis's expressions so well and feature a suit that was only being worn for the 4th time. Particular mention must be made of the books photos being BOTH Quality AND Quantity by photographer Zenon Bidzinski. Elvis's expressions captured whilst performing songs like 'It's Midnight',' Hound Dog' and 'You gave me a Mountain' are all so good you can almost hear him singing to you from the book with all those classic expressions whilst performing! A thoroughly recommended book still available! Text in the book comes Directly from the Soundboard of this actual show! What would be nice next is a whole book featuring Elvis in his Mad Tiger suit- preferably from his South Bend 30.9.74 show! - although ANY show in this suit would be fine! The September/October 1974 tour found Elvis giving his most uneven performances in concert- really poor one night and really good the next!
South Bend had 2 good shows in 1974. The fans were all out to welcome Elvis' premier' in his 'Flame' Jumpsuit for his 20.10.76 show when he returned to Indiana again! NO SURPRIZE after the tremendous memory of shows their in 1974!.
October 2, 1974 (8:30 pm) St. Paul , MN. Civic Center.
TRACKLIST 2001 Theme / See See Rider / I Got A Woman / Amen / Love Me / Blue Suede Shoes / Big Boss Man / It's Midnight / Fever / If You love Me / Love me Tender / Hound Dog / Intros - Lawdy Miss Clawdy / All Shook Up / Teddy Bear - Don't Be Cruel / Killing Me Softly -(Voice) / Why me Lord? / The Hawaiian Wedding Song / rings dialogue / cut finger dialogue / Old Shep request-dismissed / The Wonder of You / Can't Help Falling In Love / Closing Vamp
Running Time: 50 minutes. Attendance 17,163 Jumpsuit Peacock
Once again Elvis entered the Civic Center wearing his Peacock Suit but it was noted that he looked really bored with his older material and it was only on his new songs that he showed any talent. It's a very short show and a lot of the singing load wasn't carried by Elvis who in my opinion didn't put on that much of a show. St Paul had Mike Sweeney review his 2.10.74 show in the St Paul Pioneer Press and found that 'Elvis still makes em Scream' . Mike found Elvis looking noticeably plump in his peacock suit and thought that during his 50 minute performance Elvis looked bored as his back-up singers sang a couple of songs and he walked around looking tired. Elvis kissed some of the lucky scarf gatherers and the Hawaiian Wedding song was hit of the evening. Roy M.Close thought in his review in the Minneapolis Star that Elvis was paunchy giving out scarves and had long forgotten what his songs were about with his music just being incidental.
October 3, 1974 (8:30 pm) St. Paul, MN. Civic Center.
No tracklisting available
Attendance 17,163 Jumpsuit Chinese Dragon suitPeacock
October 4, 1974. (8:30 pm) Detroit, MI. Olympia Stadium.
TRACKLIST 2001 Theme/See See Rider/I Got A Woman/Amen/Love Me/Blue Suede Shoes/It's Midnight/Big Boss Man/Fever/If You Love Me/Love me tender/Hound Dog/Intros- Lawdy Miss Clawdy/All Shook Up/Teddy Bear/Don't be Cruel/Heartbreak Hotel/Why Me Lord?/Let Me Be There-(F.Start)/The Hawaiian Wedding Song/Johnny B. Goode/Steamroller Blues/Funny How Time Slips Away/Can't Help Falling In Love/ Closing Vamp.
Running Time: 55 minutes - Attendance 17,105 Jumpsuit Chinese Dragon suitPeacock
Bill Gray in the News Entertainment wrote that after coming on stage and removing his dark glasses, the audience gave him their all, Elvis in return just did his standard 50 minute set. His performance was described as casual, simply throwing away performances of All shook up, Teddy bear/Don't be Cruel and Heartbreak Hotel. Indeed I recently watched 20 minutes of Video footage on the Collectors Gold Vol. 5 from Westcom Video's of the Detroit 4th October performance. Filmed from the stage left here Elvis achieves not only the SAME Jumpsuit in the same Venue(as before) but looking at him walking around near the end of the show (with all the lights turned up) he is performing Funny How Time Slips Away YET AGAIN! Most of the show consists of Throwaway oldies and with Love Me lots of Kissing Girls on the Stage edge and accepting a White Rose. Elvis stands facing the band during the lengthy introduction and featuring J.B on guitar again almost seemingly paying as much attention to his band here as the Fans. You can see the Stamps perform Why Me Lord with Elvis and yet Heartbreak Hotel is just a conveyer for scarf giving out!. Elvis looks OK in his Dragon Suit but the partial performance I have just seen on Video doesn't seem like much of a show for the Fans at all (unless you received a scarf that is!).
October 5, 1974 (2.30 pm) Indianapolis, IN. The Expo Center.
TRACKLIST 2001 Theme / See See Rider / I Got A Woman - Amen / Love Me / Blue Suede shoes / Dialogue/ It's Midnight / Big Boss Man / Fever / If You Love Me / Hound Dog / Introductions / Lawdy Miss Clawdy / All Shook Up / Teddy Bear - Don't Be Cruel / Heartbreak Hotel / Killing Me Softly (by Voice) / Johnny B. Goode / Why Me Lord / Let Me Be There / Hawaiian Wedding Song / Love Me Tender / Polk Salad Annie / Can't Help Falling In Love / Closing Vamp.
Running Time: 55 minutes. Attendance: 14,000 Jumpsuit: Mad Tiger Suit
This was Elvis's first appearance in Indianapolis for 2 and a half years, in that time Press reporter for the Indianapolis STAR Rita had got married and was looking forward to the excitement at the Elvis Presley show she had remembered from his good 1972 appearance. What Rita reported was really quite shocking! Rita Rose thought his performance was so bad in her Indianapolis Star review that she wondered 'Was that really Elvis Presley at the Expo Center?' Rita thought the sound system was very poor and many fans left the concert with subdued faces, even Elvis said to one of the theatre staff that his concert was one of the worst he had performed in his entire career. This concert was only slightly better than his 27.9.74 show with generally a very lackluster performance without much effort. Certainly listening to his 55 minute show it does not have many highlights. A lot of the show comes across as very rushed when he sings and probably the only highlights were a fairly well received 'It's Midnight' and 'The Hawaiian Wedding Song'.
Elvis comes to the intros VERY EARLY, then asks for Voice to sing 'Killing me Softly'. Pretty soon after that we hear lackluster 'Love me tender' a too fast 'Polk Salad Annie' then almost as quick as possible it's his closing song and it's all over leaving me stunned as to how quickly it all seems rushed through and how lacking in presentation this show has come across. Brief Video footage I have seen of the last song of the Indianapolis A/S + E/S clearly show Elvis pale, puffy and strained at the Afternoon Show yet looking pretty good by the Evening show. It's at most of the Afternoon shows during this tour that Elvis doesn?t seem at his best- maybe he hadn't properly woken up yet from all the sleeping medications he was taking?. Elvis himself seemed to realize he had performed very poorly and gave a much improved Evening Show in similar good style as the Dayton 6.10.74 E/S the next day.
October 5, 1974 (8.30 pm) Indianapolis, IN. The Expo Center.
TRACKLIST 2001 Theme / C.C. Rider / dialogue / That's All Right, Mama / I Got A Woman - Amen / Love Me / If You Love Me, Let Me Know / Fever / Big Boss Man / Love Me Tender / Hound Dog / The Wonder Of You / Blue Suede Shoes / Introductions / Lawdy, Miss Clawdy / All Shook Up / Teddy Bear - Don't Be Cruel / Heartbreak Hotel / Blue Christmas / Let Me Be There + Reprise / How Great Thou Art / It's now or Never / Can't Help Falling In Love / Closing Vamp
Running Time: 60 minutes. Attendance: 14,000 Jumpsuit: Peacock Suit
A better Evening show with Elvis looking better and above all else performing better.
