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Elvis Madison Square Gardens 1972

Elvis was the first artist to fill four performances at the legendary Madison Square Garden between 9-11 June 1972. What’s really funny is that Elvis told Tom Jones that he had a fear that no one would turn up, but all shows were sold out with 80,000 fans and major stars attended including John Lennon, George Harrison, David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Paul Smith. With each ticket only at $10 each, Elvis made a gross of $730,000. This shows that even Elvis had fears that were not justified. I suppose he was human just like everybody else.

I don’t think that Elvis liked being called shy because at the conference on the 9th of june 1972, when asked about the shy part of his character, Elvis got up and flashed his gem studded $10,000 belt presented to him at the Las Vegas International Hotel for breaking attendance records there. Elvis stated, “I don’t know what makes them say that.”

In his pre-show conference you can’t help but admire the charming personality, his humorous side and not putting anyone down when asked about other entertainers.

When the show started it was in the afternoon, its hard to believe that Elvis was nervous but he certainly was. Elvis came close to leaving after comedian friend Jackie Kahane was booed off. But it proved that the crowd wanted only Elvis and they sure got him.

An album had been planned to coincide with his New York Shows, and Elvis’s evening performance on June the 10th was chosen for it, the earlier concert on the same day was later released as An Afternoon In The Garden. Elvis at this point had been in front of live audiences for three years. The comeback of the Las Vegas comeback concerts and Elvis was a high energy performer. He had an orchestra and vocal support with two back up combinations. The Sweet Inspirations those background was gospel and soul, and they had backed up famous Aretha Franklin. Another gospel group, J.D. Sumner and The Stamps quartet. Elvis’s costumes were stunning, including a cape that he would expand like a butterfly, with his eyes closed.

The shows were successful but many people criticized that the resulting album was not quite as good as the studio releases From Elvis In Memphis and Elvis Country or even the 1970′s live On Stage. Elvis was singing more songs at this point about lost love and broken hearts. This was not surprising because Elvis and Priscilla were having marriage difficulties and Priscilla had left Graceland at the end of 1971. So as a compassionate human race that we are, we can think now that obviously Elvis’s performances could not always be guaranteed to produce passionate performances, well it’s a little difficult to have passion when your family is broken apart. But even though he had been going through heartache and pain, he still managed to achieve nearly superhuman achievement in 1972. His opening gig at Madison Square Garden described him as “A Prince From Another Planet” in the headline of The New York Times. Elvis didn’t want to be just a singer he wanted his audiences to be wowed and a high status of god and whoever had the privilege to attend the shows in 1972 would account that Elvis was a human god in action.