The “King,” Vegas, rock ‘n roll, the seventies; two recent biopics; now an installation of Elvis Presley’s performance—airtight, dazzling, toe-thumping, satisfying. A love letter to a man so famous that everyone above a certain age has an opinion about his life, “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” (Universal), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, turns to his abilities as a musician.
Because the audience knows how this particular story ends, the filmmakers can take major risks with the chronology of Elvis’s life. Typically this would lead to confused character development, a baffled audience, and a negative critical reception, especially in non-fiction. But the deftness of editorial approach, backward and forward, backward and forward, backward and forward, like a metronome, is one of the many delights of EPiC’s carefully controlled design. Two- to three-minute clips of his Las Vegas concerts are lovingly threaded with black-and-white interviews from much earlier in his life.
As spectacles, his were by far the finest of all the Las Vegas shows, and Elvis was the International Hotel’s most valuable act; “Never have we had the advance reservations we have with Elvis,” a manager from the time says. On the Hotel’s glitzy stage Elvis (and his large band) performed up to three times per day to hundreds of fans who made a special trip to the remote desert-city. Elvis was famous from Greenland to Argentina but never performed outside North America. A close reading of EPiC reveals several of the secrets to his success. He tends to turn his body to his left, stage right for the audience, where the background singers are invariably placed. This move enables him to direct band and singers with his body (as opposed to a conductor’s baton, which is only seen—being held by somebody else—once in the whole film). He passes the corded microphone from one hand to the other, like handing off an altogether different kind of baton during a track relay. The camera focuses on his elegant fingers which often make lyric-appropriate shapes such as an ‘O.K.’ sign. He shakes his left leg more than his right. He’s very precise with the ending of songs, and he often conducts with his whole body, punching or kicking the air flamboyantly to time perfectly with the final chord. It is supremely well rehearsed and not, in fact, spontaneous. “We enjoy what we’re doing,” he says.
After concerts “it takes at least four to five hours even to begin to unwind”; the band sings various close-harmony gospel songs like “How Great Thou Art,” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah”—which are later, efficiently, used in their sets—in Elvis’s hotel suite.
Background shots from actual nineteen-seventies footage—the surprisingly showy clothes, the mixed palate of colours (beyond brown), the huge hair, the sideburns—render feeble most of the efforts of modern-day-throwback-movie designers. These shots are not overplayed; but it is vital to the filmmakers that the modern-day audience gets it—some women (in particular) urgently needed to make a pilgrimage to Las Vegas for the specific purpose of attending one of his concerts. (The use of a one-second-long shot of a billboard stating, simply, “ELVIS-SOLD OUT” is remarkably effective.) He is polite when interviewed, he throws quick, sexy glances at the person asking the question, he flashes his teeth for a half-second, he is naturally self-deprecating (he claims, say, that his trademark leg shaking is because of the presence of ants in his performance trousers). But we also see him before he is drafted to fight for his country, and upon his return from war, wearing tight corporate-style suits with narrow, dark ties—standard nineteen-fifties costume—singing “Hound Dog” without the resources he later commands.
Of all the archive film introduced, that of studio rehearsals—smaller band but in the presence of television cameras—is the most deeply pleasurable. Elvis runs his rehearsals from a orchestral-conductor-style music stand with a light attached above. He places chords “like a giant instrument” and, in a later interview, reveals that “the lights are the same thing” (the audience hasn’t even noticed). The camera lingers gently on one or other of his musicians’ faces—they know perfectly well of what they are part. He explains that “if you’re in the Baptist chorus,” as he was when growing up, “there’s a kind of intensity” which influenced him as a child (his other major influences being rhythm and blues, country music, and even the New York Metropolitan Opera). When he finds something difficult or struggles with a musical decision in rehearsal, he smiles. His diction is perfect.
“I’m just an entertainer,” Elvis says. The context to the sad ending of his life—hinted at in EPiC by the exhausted, bleary-eyed, profusely sweating person we see in his later performances; and by a single, haunting answer he gives to one interviewer, “I’ve experienced happiness and loneliness and tragedy”—is detailed assuredly in the stronger of those two biopics, “Elvis” (2022), which is also directed by EPiC’s Baz Luhrmann. The performance of Austin Butler, the exceptionally talented actor who plays Elvis, becomes even more remarkable after seeing the “real” version. (Mr Butler is particularly good at the correct angling of Elvis’s head, the manner with which he touches his fingers to his mouth and chin, and the tapering of his fingers as he does so.)
I recommend a visit to the Playhouse to see “EPiC” for all lovers of music. Elvis seems to suggest that he’s mighty glad to have us. The music itself never stops: just as Elvis can effortlessly talk over a rhythm as he performs, so can the filmmakers splice in some old footage without missing a beat. It’s terrific. “I never get comfortable,” Elvis says. “I remind [the band] that it’s a new crowd out there. They haven’t seen us before.” As the hotel elevator doors close at the end of the show, we are left to ponder one particular interview question, “Have you ever grown tired over the years?” A pause. “If nobody saw me,” Elvis replies, “recognised me…To me it’s just part of the business…I would miss it.”
“Wise men say
Only fools rush in
But I can’t help
Falling in love with you.”
Adam Poole
28th February 2026
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