Words by

Óli Dóri

Elvis Presley—On Stage: April 23, Harpa Concert Hall

The all new “ELVIS PRESLEY – ON STAGE” music experience kicked off its tour here in Reykjavík on the last day of winter—April 23. 

I just want to start this review by saying that I’ve been a big fan of Elvis since I was ten. I even wrote my  masters thesis on the man. So the excitement was high when I walked into Harpa’s Eldborg Hall to experience “the closest I could get to seeing him in concert.” Elvis never played outside of North America while he was alive, but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, a show like this has been running on and off since 1997, touring in many of the countries Elvis didn’t visit. Before it was called Elvis Presley in Concert and at that time some of the players were member of his original band in Las Vegas. It was not the case this time around though and nobody on stage looked like they had been born when Elvis was still alive. 

The main problem with this concert was, first and foremost, that it was not a concert. It was a group of people playing alongside a movie, an expensive movie (tickets were sold for 10,000 ISK). It never really felt like a real show. During many of the songs the band did not seem in sync with Elvis’s voice and after 20 minutes, the movie cut from ‘70s concerts in Vegas to clips from the ‘Elvis 1968 Comeback Special,’ and then back again. It was really ironic to hear Elvis utter the words “If you milk it long enough” on stage. What would he have thought if he knew that long after his death he would be on a big screen in a concert hall in Iceland backed by session players milking his legacy to the max? 

I’m waiting for the hologram…