by John Connell
For some years, at least one of the various Australian Elvis Presley fan clubs took up a stand at the festival, offering not merely memorabilia but tours to the United States, from (Blue) Hawaii to Las Vegas and Memphis itself, and its stand was a central meeting point for club members. The more expensive concerts were also designed primarily for the keenest fans: the fanatics and the fan club members. The main ticketed concert in 2010, by the acclaimed tribute artist Mark Andrew, was designed to be as far as possible, in content and structure, right down to the distribution of sweat-soaked scarves at the right moments, an authentic replica of a famed televised Las Vegas show from the 1970s, incorporating banter with the audience and a number of songs that never became familiar hits, or that Elvis never sang again. Authenticity is prized.
Nonetheless, for some ‘true fans’, subscribers to the Elvis Information Network, none of that was good enough and they found Parkes unappealing:
I find the whole Parkes Festival to be distasteful to Elvis’s name. There were too many drunken Elvis look-alikes and B-grade impersonators. These festivals should be a positive reflection on Elvis and not parade a bunch of buffoons and people out for a good time, not to commemorate Elvis’s music.
When a prize was given to a singer who did a remarkable version of ‘Suspicious Minds’ with didjeridu backing, a fan club president was appalled: ‘Elvis never had a didgeridoo player backing him’. The visible Elvis was just as distasteful. On one website: ‘Why is it always photos of Elvis in his fat, bloated white jump suit pre-death phase? Where are all the Jailhouse Rock Elvises? Or the ’68 Comeback Special Elvises? Do the man justice!’
Such ardent fans claim that the festival trivialises Elvis. By 2009 Jane had had enough:
Looking at the jumpsuited buffoons and fans with obviously more than an obsession all I can say is that Elvis must be turning in his grave. The whole thing makes a mockery of what a wonderful person Elvis was. It’s high time we got back to Elvis and his music and ignored this other world of tacky, psychologically challenged people who can’t find their own lives to live.
They were certainly not alone in their dismay. Cynthia felt that ‘there are very few real Elvis fans at the Parkes get-together. Most of those who are there wouldn’t know “It’s Now or Never” from “In the Ghetto”’. Sharon was even more appalled: ‘I left thinking what a wank the whole thing was. If this is how we are to celebrate Elvis, give me his greatest hits record every time. Junk food and crappy costumes is not what Elvis is about and never will be’. Such fans gloss over the latter-day reclusive Elvis of dubious taste.
When the ABC documentary Elvis Lives in Parkes came out in 2007, some reactions were much the same: ‘an absolute disgrace to Elvis’s memory’. Others saw both sides, sometimes in surprising ways: ‘It’s a bit like the Roman Catholic Church, isn’t it? At the populist level you have tacky souvenirs and memorabilia, while at the more serious level you have beautiful art and music and a deeper appreciation of what it’s all about’.
For real fanatics Elvis is not to be trivialised in any way, but they are a tiny minority. Such fans rarely stay up until late at night to be even more appalled by a pub scene that usually descends into Top 40 hits, disco and drunken revelry. Over the years, the most serious Elvis fans simply stayed away, and fan clubs stopped turning up, or even mentioning the festival on their websites or in their newsletters.
While fans and fanatics were everywhere, the festival involved many people who were there primarily because it was a fun weekend, for whom a generalised nostalgia was sometimes of significance, and Elvis was part of that. A first-time visitor in 2007 said:
I think what it means to me … it brings back old memories. I was never an Elvis fan because I was pretty young when Elvis started out … but everybody of my generation heard it, whether you wanted to or not. As I got older and Elvis got older … I thought, gee, this bloke is pretty good … now my daughter loves him … we’re passing it on to my grandson, who’s travelling with us. I sort of came kicking and screaming in a way but I’m glad I came.
Another festival-goer said: ‘I really identify with the music … If you were born in that era the music is ingrained; it’s part and parcel of growing up’. The majority of fans had neither reverential nor purist aspirations. And in practice, there were no obvious divisions between fans and fanatics. They all intended to enjoy themselves, by day and by night.
Why they come
This is our first year. We saw it on TV last year and we thought ‘How good is that? We’ve got to go’. Because we’re Elvis fanatics. In our street we get the stereo out and there’s probably half a dozen neighbours. We got the whole street into this Elvis thing … we sit out there and sing and drink – it’s great. We said, we’re going to go, just the boys, but then the women wanted to come along, and they’re loving it. First they said, ‘Parkes: it’s all just dusty. No way, we’re not going to come’. But we said, ‘No, you’ll be right’. They come out here and they go: ‘I thought it was all dusty; this is all right – look, they got shops. They got shops like Sydney’.
It’s just such a random concept, this festival, and it’s in such a random place, and I think that’s what appealed to us and why we’re here.
I wanted to come for years but my Dad, whose birthday was the same day as Elvis’s, was ill for a number of years, so I didn’t come. But my dad has passed on and is up with Elvis in heaven singing along. This is my first year and it’s been fabulous.
Stella had breast cancer and we wanted to cheer her up; she’s a real Elvis fanatic, so we booked it all again and even the clothes – she didn’t know about that.
It was one of those things we always wanted to do, like once in your life: ‘Yeah, we should get to Parkes for the Elvis Festival’. And then it was her 50th and we thought, ‘Let’s just go …’ And then we texted the siblings: ‘Hey, guess what? We’re going to Elvis’ … One has come from Wales, and another one’s from Darwin.
I have two weekends a year that I love. One is the Elvis Presley Festival; the other is the NSW State Maths Conference. I get very excited and every year all my maths classes, at some stage through the year, have to watch the Elvis clip of ‘American Trilogy’. I get them all going, and we count the beats, you see.
Elvis vs Elvis rugby: a hard-fought and well-lubricated local derby. ‘The most entertaining 5–all draw I’ve ever witnessed’, Michael Cheika reportedly called it
Mike Williams
Hamming it up in the street parade, 2007
Robbie Begg
Two Parkes Elvis Festival staff pose in replicas of the costume worn by Elvis’s co-star, Cynthia Pepper, in Kissin’ Cousins (1964)
Chris Gibson
‘I’ve gone all out; there’s no half measures in this town. I’ve got the wig and the suit, the rings and don’t forget these awesome sunnies … it’s tackalicious! If we were anywhere else we’d get bashed but around here you just get bought beers. It’s fucking fantastic.’
7
SCHOOLIES FOR GROWN-UPS?
Schoolies Week, a curiously Australian phenomenon, descended on an unsuspecting public in the 1980s. It began on the Gold Coast in Queensland, sometimes seen as a sunny place for shady people. Schoolies has since become a familiar concept: a week of fun and frequent licentiousness for high-school leavers embarking on their journey to adulthood, employment, travel or further education. The media represent it as a period of lawlessness, ugly behaviour and unruliness, characterised by binge drinking, drug-taking and sexual excess. For most participants, Bacchanalian excesses are limited but fun and excitement rule the week. By contrast, academics have described the week as a cultural rite of passage – a transition between youth and adulthood, marking a shift from the imposition of school discipline to the liberated freedom to ‘have a body which is out of control’. In Parkes, transition is only temporary, from work to play, with the certainty that it cannot last, however much bodies get out of control. One Parkes teenager, caught up in home-hosting, was ag
hast: ‘We had these old ladies staying and they were out till 3.30 each night’. People came to have fun, a momentary excess of unconstrained and unstructured freedom. As more than one festival-goer told us, Parkes is ‘schoolies for grown-ups’.
For the Good Times
While the more dedicated fans of Elvis give the festival much of its character and colour, others look on bemused at the hard-core impersonators and the fanatics: ‘They take it so seriously. A few of them are just so intense about it … they’ve all been to Memphis, and they’ve all got Elvis watches, handbags, wallets. It’s amazing how much memorabilia they buy’. It was fun just watching them, and each other, and inwardly ridiculing but often also competing. It could be catching. Local people often had similar views; as one shop owner noted: ‘It’s almost a cult. These people live, eat and breathe this guy. It’s bordering on creepy. We think it’s hilarious that people do this stuff’. Some shopkeepers may laugh all the way to the bank.
Plenty of the festival-goers laugh too. Not all are serious or even real fans of Elvis, even if the festival is constructed around the King. In the middle of the 2016 parade came a dozen middle-aged ladies, sashaying their way through the occasional wolf whistles, with beehive wigs, wearing T-shirts with matching screen-printed bikinis and g-strings, laughing and applauding their own appalling tastelessness. Carnival extravagances suit the parade and such T-shirts work in Parkes, though they would never work at the local mall. Taste is no prerequisite for Festival attendance.
Even ordinary fans make some effort. As Stella put it: ‘I’m a big fan of Elvis, but I’m not a fanatical fan. I dress up a bit, I’ve got Elvis shirts for this evening. It helps to get into the scene and enjoy the music’. Said another festival-goer: ‘I get into my Elvis gear when I go out dancing, skirts, the lot, bobby socks, and they all know me here because they know me as Margie the dancer with the legs; they love my legs. See?’ Margie and her legs were 63. Participation increases the enjoyment. Miriam reminded us: ‘The common denominator is Elvis and music, so everyone can feel free to let loose even though we’re all over 80’. A retiree from rural Gundagai, who identified himself and his wife as Elvis and Melvis, had had a good day: ‘I put on my Elvis jumpsuit, wig and glasses and had a great time getting on a float in the street parade and making people smile. Thank yer, thank yer very much’. All would probably have seemed fanatics to other festival-goers, many of whom claim no more than limited enthusiasm for Elvis. They are there entirely because it is a fun weekend, dressing up is possible but not obligatory (although many say ‘Next time we will too …’), everything is light-hearted and Elvis is accessible: ‘Great having a beer with Elvis’, ‘We always say hello to all the other Elvises … It’s much more intimate and personal than Tamworth, and much funnier’. Anyone can be sucked into playing the game. Performers and spectators merge and emerge.
Most people simply come for fun, relaxation, family time and a sense of community. And fun it is. Men who would not attract a second glance in daily life can tuck their comb-overs under Elvis wigs, slip on the sunglasses and jumpsuit, and attract admiration, cheeky pinches, grabs and kisses. The masquerade is on. Some look vaguely like Elvis; others are the Fonz and Liberace on bad days. Women are having fun too. One journalist was astounded: ‘I’m taken aback at how many of them grab the bottom of 32-year-old impersonator Silas Paisley. I even hear some of them ask him if they can take photographs of his bum, clad in its tight black leather jumpsuit’. And that was at midday. Others let their T-shirts make the point for them: ‘I slept with Elvis before Priscilla’ or ‘You can park your blue suede shoes under my bed any time’. As the train rolls into Parkes the new arrivals, still struggling with the heat, are asked: ‘Do you want to get lei’d by Elvis?’ Political correctness is also on holiday.
Visibly dominating the crowds as they wander through Cooke Park, past the market stalls and stage, and along the main street, are the Elvii and their wives, girlfriends and partners, the Priscillae. Dressing up is hot, but fun and liberating. Most visitors are not there to perform. Shyness, modesty and deplorable talent guarantee this. Dressing up is their performance. They may simply be Elvis impersonator impersonators.
Putting on the costume enables both fantasy and metamorphosis. It might not generate the adrenalin that comes with actually performing but it guarantees a considerable degree of attention. Inhibitions disappear. One concluded, ‘It’s a big theme party and everybody feels like they can talk to each other because you’re all looking like idiots’. Plenty who would have struggled in any look-alike or sound-alike contest find that the festival and a modicum of disguise encourage improbable efforts and aspirations. After all, even Crap Elvis became a short-lived star.
Why be Elvis?
It gives me an opportunity to portray that charismatic feeling back to an audience. Dressing up takes it to a higher level. You’re giving an experience that’s similar to an Elvis experience ... You don’t become Elvis ... but you take people on a musical journey. It’s what I enjoy. Ladies come up and say – they’re 50 or 60 years old – ‘Tonight I was 18 again’.
When you wear the Elvis jumpsuit a transformation takes place. It doesn’t matter who you are – you could be the president of a huge company or you could be a labourer – when you wear the jumpsuit there’s no distinction. It’s a great leveller.
I went and bought this shirt yesterday in the park so my skirt will blend in with my husband’s colours, for the renewal of vows … I don’t like putting too much of this stuff on because we can’t wear it around Warwick … people would think we were queer with all our Elvis gear on. But out here he can express himself.
Putting on the Elvis suit lets you be who you want; there’s almost no limits to what you can do … no one knows who you are and I think you forget yourself a bit and just get into the Elvis persona … I’ve been walking round all weekend doing the ‘tilt-in knees’ and the ‘slow twist’ and practising my ‘thank yer very much’s’ … and everybody can’t get enough of it, it’s bloody unreal. I’ll have to perfect my moves for next year so I can win the Elvis move-alike comp because I’ve got no chance winning the sound-alike comp.
I’ve gone all out; there’s no half measures in this town. I’ve got the wig and the suit, the rings and don’t forget these awesome sunnies ... it’s tackalicious! I think if we were anywhere else we’d get bashed but around here you just get bought beers; it’s fucking fantastic.
The festival offers plenty of opportunities to let hair down. It is carnival time; work is forgotten, strangers become friends and tomorrow can take care of itself. Returnees are most likely to get into the spirit of Elvis:
Because we saw how last time it was so good. Like everyone would come dressed up as Elvis, we thought, ‘No, we’ve definitely got to do that’. It’s just like you have a bit of an out-of-body experience, you’re not really being yourself … a chance to just let your hair down for a few days.
A Priscilla impersonator from Sydney confessed: ‘We’ve been dressed up for the whole weekend. It’s such a laugh. Although it’s a bit of a worry, most of the guys have been wearing their Elvis jumpsuits for three days in a row … I would hate to be the hire places when they get the suits back’. The same principle applies to the multiple petticoats of well-dressed Priscillas, and some are disappointed when it is simply too hot and they can’t get into the mood, and the clothes. Heat, sweat, lycra and jumpsuits are never a perfect combination.
A group of retirees from Canberra pointed out in 2007: ‘The thing we noticed when we were walking down the main street last night was that everyone was singing, everyone was friendly and it’s sort of unusual because there’s no inhibitions and everyone is “yahooing” and having a few beers, which was great’. Harmony reigns and friendliness emerges in unexpected ways:
There’s a sense of community here. I feel like I’m at Bunnings [a hardware chainstore]. At Bunnings we have to say hello to everyone. And when I go away, I hope to get away from that. But everyone says hello
to you here, so I’m still at Bunnings. But the community is great and it’s an even friendlier Bunnings.
Ella, from Canberra, put it slightly differently:
You know people generally day-to-day won’t look at each other, won’t talk to each other but you’ll just be walking along here and someone will come up to you: ‘Where’d you get that skirt?’ ... and you get talking. And … there’s one stallholder that’s here every year and … you walk up and he goes, ‘Oh, how are you this year?’ ... it’s really lovely like that. We spend most of our lives being anonymous, so it’s nice to be around friendly people.
Another festival-goer said:
Yeah, it’s a great feeling for us, because we’ve been coming for so long and there’s … an Elvis fraternity, especially in Sydney, and so we come up here and we meet so many people that we only see once a year … we’re all as one here, you know. It’s a beautiful thing.
Rather improbably the festival can even be seen as educational. One visitor from the New South Wales Riverina said:
It’s not so much about trying to be Elvis but its more about having fun getting dressed up in that era, the ’60s and ’70s, and you learn so much about that period when you get into it.
Another pointed out, ‘It’s like being on the sidelines if you don’t dress up’. Matty, in his late twenties, described himself as ‘the one and only bearded Elvis’ and wore a sparkling silver jumpsuit with a cap, four rings he picked up at op shops, a wig and aviator glasses: