Elvis to return here
for March 27 concert.
By ROBERT WILLIAMS
Arts Editor
Elvis Presley is coming back to Taylor County Coliseum March 27, coliseum manager Dennis Templeton announced this morning.
"Due to the appreciation of the Abilene audience on his first visit to the Big Country," Templeton said, "Elvis has agreed to a return engagement." The concert will begin at 8:30 p.m. Sunday, March 27.
Tickets for the concert go on sale at 9 a.m. Wednesday," and will be sold un-til all are gone." Templeton said. Prices are $10, $12.50, and $15. There will be a 25-cent handling charge on each ticket sold to pay for the box office staff.
"The tickets will be sold on a first come, first serve basis," Templeton said, and no phone reservations or mail orders will be accepted.
Although Presley performed for a sell-out crowd of 8,600 on his last appearance in Abilene Oct. 9, 1974, only about 8,200 seats are available for this performance under directions of the Abilene Fire Department.
"Ever since I´ve been here, all I´ve heard is, ´When´re you going to get Elvis back?´ " Templeton said. "So now he´s back."
Expecting a large crowd at the opening of ticket sales, Templeton has moved two West Texas Fair ticket booths to the front of the coliseum so eight ticket windows may be operated at once.
The tickets will be evenly divided between the eight windows, Templeton said, and all will have front-row tickets.
"So it doesn´t matter what line you get in," Templeton said. "If you don´t get a front-row seat, it´s because someone beat you to it."
Copyright: Abilene Reporter News March 1, 1977
The ABILENE REPORTER-NEWS, Tues., Eve., March 22, 1977
Tickets still available for Elvis´s Sunday concert
As the countdown to Sun-day´s Elvis Presley concert in Taylor County Coliseum reaches five days, tickets are still available, said coliseum manager Dennis Templeton.
When Presley performed here in 1974, the coliseum was sold out. The 8,536 tickets were sold quickly and were priced at $5, $7.50 and $10, compared to this year´s prices of $10, $12.50 and $15.
In 1974, almost 500 more chairs were set up to meet the demand, which led to a then-record crowd of 8,604 for the facility.
The coliseum box office will be open daily from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m., including Saturday. On Sunday the remaining tickets will be available at the box of-fice from 9 a.m. until the 8:30 p.m. showtime, or as long as they last.
Persons sending mail orders should address them to Elvis Presley Show; PO Box 5527, Abilene, Tex. 19605, enclosing 25 cents per ticket in addition to the ticket price of $10, $12.50 or $15. Mail orders will be held at the box office.
Persons should send only cashier´s checks or money or-ders by mail, and those pay-ing in person must use one of those means or cash.
In other words, no personal
checks will be taken, said Templeton.
Also, no phone reservations will be accepted.
Templeton said most of the tickets remaining are in the $15 group.
Fewer tickets are available this year due to fire regu-lations, Templeton said Mon-day, however, a limited number of additional seats could be set up beside the stage if the demand exists.
Presley is only making three Texas stops on his current tour - Abilene, Amarillo and Austin, said Templeton.
lvis Tickets Not Going as Fast as in Past
By ROBERT WILLIAMS
Arts Editor
Everyone wanted Elvis Presley to come back, and he´s coming back, but the concert is not sell-ing well this time. The last time Presley came to Abilene, the tickets were sold out within several days of the concert, but this time, plenty of tick-ets are still available.
Rumors have floated around town that because the concert has not sold out, Elvis may cancel his appearance here. Dennis Templeton, man-ager of the Taylor County Coliseum, said the ru-mors are not true.
"He´s coming," Templeton said. "He´ll be here. I´ve talked to them every day. He´s al-ready started his tour, and it´s too late to go to another building to fill the date. They wouldn´t have time to get another building or print and sell tickets. It´s firm -- I wouldn´t worry about it."
The most obvious reason the tickets are not selling is that they are priced so high this time - $15, $12.50, and $10, the bulk of those being $15 tickets. But the high prices also help to gua-rantee that Presley will not cancel the concert, Templeton said.
"His ticket prices are so high he´s already got over $70.000 in the bank," Templeton said. "They´re not going to turn that down. They can´t afford the labor to refund all that."
The stories about the elaborate security and secrecy surrounding the arrangements for one of Presley´s concerts are true, Templeton said.
"They do keep it a secret where he´s going to be staying," he said. "I feel sorry for the guy. It´s bad that they have to do that, but they do."
Templeton recalled a past experience he had with a Presley concert, when the secret leaked out.
"When I was working for the Houston Live-stock and Rodeo Show, " he said, "We had him
at the Astrodome. We took him to Astroworld Hotel across the street, where he had a whole top floor. But the girls found out about it."
Presley and his crew were mobbed, Templeton said, as they were driving their vans to the ho-tel. "They knocked my boss flat on his back," Templeton said. "They would destroy him. It´s dangerous. He has to do it, just for his own safety. He couldn´t sleep, he couldn´t eat without it. I don´t know why people react that way, but for Elvis, they do."
No one needs bother with trying to find out where Presley will be staying, Templeton said, because he will not be spending the night in Abi-lene. "They had planned to," he said, "but they´re not. He´s going to fly in and fly out Sun--day night.
Tickets for the concert, priced at $15, $12.50, and $10, will be available at the door Sunday night. The concert begins at 8:30 p.m.
Coliseum crowd ´all shook up´ over Elvis
By JIM CONLEY
Staff Writer
It was a different Elvis Presley who returned to Taylor County Coliseum Sun-day night after 2½ years between shows.
He was healthier looking; he seemed more relaxed; he acted happier, and he gave more of himself.
This time the King of Rock ´n´ Roll did 22 songs in 75 minutes, more than one every 3½ minutes.
Yet, despite doing so many songs, he was far from being a human music ma-chine, as he joked back with his adoring
female fans who screamed, "Elvis, I love you!" throughout the show.
He made off the cuff remarks, saying, "Yes, I still get nervous before I go on-stage" and ending the show with thanks and a pledge: "If you want us to come back, just tell us and we´ll be glad to."
The show was not a sellout, but a fair estimate of attendance would be about 7,500. Coliseum personnel were unavail-able today but exact figures should be available by tonight.
Elvis wore a cream-white suit, trim-med in gold and with small gold chains draped from the waist band. The outfit was open almost to the beltline, showing several square inches of the chest that has made female hearts pound for more than 20 years.
And his music? His voice? Sensational.
As good as we´ve heard it, and with no trace of the fatique which seemed some-what evident when he last played here in October of 1974.
One highlight of the show was his ren-dition of "My Way," the song that Si-natra made famous but which could
belong more to Elvis if he continues doing it like he did Sunday night.
He wrapped his voice around the song and made it sound autobiographical. In fact, only during "My Way" did many of the women quiet down, letting the emo-tion and meaning he gave to the song sink in.
Elvis has done things his way, and he´s not showing any signs of slowing down.
He took the stage at about 9:55 p.m., after an intermission which followed his typically fine warm-up acts.
J.D. Sumner and the Stamps Quartet primed the musical pump with a delight-fully warm set of gospel songs.
And The Sweet Inspiration, three top notch singers, boosted the temperature in a cool coliseum by a few degrees with their disco-soul numbers.
By the time Elvis came out, the pro-verbial "fever pitch" had been reached.
First, he pounded out "C.C. Rider," then "I Got a Woman."
After a hand-clapping "Amen," Elvis drew laughs by cracking up when he found gum on one shoe and said, "Man, I´m stuck to the stage."
After that it was shades of the old days, as he did "Love Me."
His fifth tune was "If You Love Me Let Me Know," contrasted with a beauti-fully powerful "This Time (Lord You Gave Me a Mountain)."
"Jailhouse Rock" brought thundering applause and shrieks.
Then Evis came back down to earth for a few moments, letting a male backup singer lead into "It´s Now or Never" by doing the song from which its melody was taken, "O Sole Mio."
"Tryin´ to Get to You" followed as his ninth song, and just afterward he estab-lished even more rapport with the au-dience.
He did what he said was the first song
he ever recorded, "That´s Alright, Mama," then "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"
For the latter song, he and his assist-ant, Charlie - who hands him his souve-nir scarves and his water - broke each other up.
Charlie held the mike near Elvis´s mouth while the King whacked on the guitar. The two began looking at each other and laughing at the significance of the words of the love song.
Whether the mock "gaiety" was re-hearsed or spontaneous, it didn´t matter: it was effectively human and silly, and it made his fans laugh right along with him.
His particularly sincere-sounding ver-sion of "My Way" was next.
"Fever" moved the tempo up a bit, giving even more contrast to his follow-up - "How Great Thou Art."
Then it was time to introduce mem-bers of his band, and he used the op-portunity to sing during short versions of the songs each played.
He sang bits of "Early Morning Rain," "What I Say" and "Johnny B. Good" as the band members demonstrated their individual excellence.
Song number 18 was his latest, the oldie "Hurt."
"Hound Dog" had the effect of most of Elvis´s past hits: mob mania from the ladies, who did their piranha fish num-ber by the stage, grabbing for the scarves he tossed out, while harried po-licemen tried to keep the girls out of the aisles.
Elvis then passed the mike to his main backup singer for two outstanding vac-als, "Danny Boy" and a gospel number.
Oldies were Elvis´s next offering, as he gyrated through "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Lawdy Miss Clawdy."
He finished with one of his more romantic popular hits, "I Can´t Help Falling in Love with You."
He took a moment to thank the crowd, mentioning that he would come back if his fans would just tell him, and then he left the stage as the lights dimmed and the band whipped out some fast rock and roll.
His announcer made it very clear that it was no use hang-ing around for any encores.
The house lights went up and the voice said: "Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the coliseum..."
It was over, and the man who is perhaps the world´s top start seemed to have vanished, taking his music with him, but leaving the memories behind.
Echoes of the bygone Elvis hung in the air...but he was "gone, gone, gone, jumpin´ like a catfish on a pole...ol´ hip-shakin´ King Creole."
Elvis...old love-me-tender, all-shook-up, don´t-be-cruel Elvis, sounding like he´ll never grow old.