EPiC – The Return of the King
- Blair Morgan
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Watching Elvis Presley in Concert in a movie theatre recently reminded me of something that often gets lost in the mythology surrounding Elvis Presley: the music itself.
The sheer cultural weight of Elvis-Las Vegas jumpsuits, tabloid stories, impersonators, the tragic ending-has sometimes obscured the central fact that he was one of the most compelling musical performers ever captured on film. What Baz Luhrmann has achieved with this documentary is to reposition Elvis exactly where he belongs: at the centre of the music.
In many ways, it’s an even more powerful depiction of Elvis than Luhrmann’s own film Elvis (reviewed here) . A biopic inevitably involves interpretation and performance. Here, we get the real thing.
What makes the documentary so compelling is its use of Elvis’s own voice-drawn from candid, often unguarded interviews he gave in the late ’60s and early ’70s. Through those recordings we hear him reflect on his childhood, his parents, and the strange trajectory that took him from Tupelo poverty to global superstardom. The film also touches on his relationship with Priscilla Presley and his daughter Lisa Marie Presley, while giving a pointed treatment of the influence of Colonel Tom Parker (accompanied in a not too subtle way by by Elvis’s own song "(You're the) Devil in Disguise").
Luhrmann cleverly layers this narrative with montages that remind us just how strange Elvis’s career trajectory became during the 1960s. Intercut among the electrifying performance footage are clips from some of the increasingly dire Hollywood films Elvis was contractually obliged to make. Watching snippets of those formulaic movies now, it becomes obvious how far they drifted from the raw musical power that had first made him famous. The contrast only reinforces how liberating it must have felt when Elvis returned to the stage at the end of the decade.
Much of the performance material comes from the remarkable early-1970s concert documentaries Elvis: That's the Way It Is and Elvis on Tour. These films captured Elvis at a fascinating moment: no longer the rebellious rockabilly upstart of the 1950s, but a seasoned performer building one of the most formidable live shows in popular music.
And there were plenty of shows. Between 1969 and 1977 Elvis performed more than 1,100 concerts. Listening to his interview recordings, you hear how much he lived for performing and how frustrated he was that he rarely played outside the United States. The desire to take the show around the world is palpable.
But the real revelation lies in the rehearsal footage.
We see Elvis first working with his core band-an extraordinary group of musicians including Jerry Scheff on bass, Ronnie Tutt on drums, Glen D. Hardin on keyboards, and the great James Burton on guitar (Hardin and Burton would later work with Gram Parsons). From there the ensemble gradually expands -backing singers (including Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston’s mother), orchestra, and additional musicians until the sound becomes something approaching a Phil Spector-like wall of sound.
It’s an astonishing musical machine being assembled piece by piece. Throughout it all, Elvis is the conductor, arranger, and lead instrument.
The intensity he brings to rehearsals is remarkable. He punctuates musical instructions with karate kicks, physical bursts of energy, and spontaneous arrangement ideas delivered in that unmistakable voice. He is not a passive frontman and knows exactly how he wants the music to move.
What’s striking too is just how singular he looks and moves on stage. By the early 1970s he had already been famous for 15 years and had spawned countless imitators. Yet watching the footage now, he still appears utterly unlike anyone else-almost like some alien presence dropped onto Earth. It’s not hard to imagine artists like David Bowie taking inspiration from this kind of otherworldly charisma when creating personas such as Ziggy Stardust around the same time.
Musically, Elvis was never content to live in the past. One of the pleasures of the film is seeing how committed he was to reinterpreting contemporary songs.
The evolution of Tony-Joe White's "Polk Salad Annie" from rehearsal to stage is extraordinary, growing from a loose groove into a towering showstopper. Elvis also dips into the catalogue of The Beatles with heartfelt versions of "Yesterday" and "Something".
One electrifying sequence pairs "Little Sister" with "Get Back". Elvis sits on a stool with an electric guitar, but the instrument, or the stool itself ,can barely contain him. At one point in the narration he remarks that he simply cannot keep still when he sings and watching the performance, you believe him completely.
Elsewhere he tackles "I Shall Be Released" by Bob Dylan, revealing the gospel roots that run through so much of his music. His rendition of "How Great Thou Art" is genuinely jaw-dropping, a reminder that gospel wasn’t an influence for Elvis-it was part of his musical DNA.
Luhrmann also emphasises the remarkable late-career run that produced songs like "In the Ghetto", "Suspicious Minds", and "Burning Love". In total, around seventy songs are woven into the film, an indication of just how deep Elvis’s repertoire was by this stage.
In a recent podcast conversation with Questlove (see below), Luhrmann described the forensic process behind the film. The production team sifted through 65 boxes of silent film footage that had been stored in salt mines in Kansas (!). Because much of it had been preserved without audio, Luhrmann had to track down private collectors and archives to reconstruct the accompanying sound and other materials.
The visual restoration is extraordinary. As with The Beatles Get Back ,the work carried out by Peter Jackson's Park Road Post Production brings the footage to life with astonishing clarity. The colour is bright and vivid, making performances shot more than fifty years ago feel immediate and alive.
Luhrmann himself says that in all the material he examined, Elvis was “never out of tune” - and did all of this without using on-stage monitors.
The film closes by returning to the gospel roots that shaped Elvis from the beginning. Luhrmann bookends the story with elements of "An American Trilogy", creating a powerful arc that links Elvis’s spiritual influences with the epic scale of his live performances.
And just when you think the film might wobble slightly, during a voice over of Bono reading his slightly earnest “American David” poem, the spell quickly reasserts itself. If anything, it serves as a reminder of Elvis’s enduring influence. Bono clearly understood the power of late ’60s and early ’70s Elvis, channeling some of that swagger into his The Fly persona during the era of Achtung Baby and the Zoo TV Tour.
What ultimately emerges from Elvis Presley in Concert is not the caricature of the King, but the working musician: funny, sharp-witted, obsessive about sound, and completely alive in the act of performance.
Strip away the mythology and what remains is the music, and when you see it presented like this, it’s easy to remember why Elvis Presley changed everything.
Go see it!
Comments