Shortly after we arrived at Graceland, I saw a lady talking to three Elvis Tribute Artists. She caught my eye because of the picture of Elvis on the back of her dress ran from the shoulders down to the bottom of the otherwise black, floor length dress. While getting my picture with her I found out that she was from Shreveport, Louisiana. She said this was her 19th straight Candlelight Vigil because she started coming in 2000. A quick check of her math says that this was actually her 20th trip but I didn’t argue. She that during one of the trips, she traveled in a black limousine with an ETA (Elvis Tribute Artist). She said they had two blowouts on the interstate. Her husband, who was taking our picture, said “And you know a limo only has ONE spare.” As the lady continued telling her story, I noticed a slight lisp that I couldn’t help noticing when she said, “We were stranded on the side of the road until some sweet soul in an SUV stopped and saved us.” Go back and read that last line out loud with a lisp.
I made an honest effort to return to my original purpose for going to Graceland for the candlelight vigil ceremonies. People watching was the goal. Unique and different people with interesting stories is what I came to see and hear. This year I would focus my attention there. Sometimes these people came to me to get my attention. I was in a gift shop looking for flasks but having no luck. I was standing next to a display that had various items on each of the 4 sides. There was a lady in a motorized mobility scooter in my line of sight coming up at the other end of this display. She ran into the display knocking it in my direction. I jumped back and looked at her. She looked back and told me she was new at this. A crowded store was no place for someone who was new to driving one of the scooters. As she hit the accelerator again, she knocked everything off a shelf full of DVDs before she stopped again. Before her family or store associates could get there to assist her, she accelerated again. I could hear the DVD cases crunching beneath the wheels of her scooter.
Whoever has the scooter concession for Graceland is raking in money during Elvis Week. People in scooters slowed down the line during the candlelight vigil procession to the gravesite. A lady in front of us had problems with her scooter rolling back downhill toward the people behind her in the line, which included us. While I was at the gravesite, my people watching instincts took over and I started taking video of scooter people.
One fixture of Elvis Week that was gone was the performance tent. My friend Tina was back with me this year and we immediately noticed that there was no tent in the parking lot where it has been for the last two years. Even before my first year at Elvis Week in 2002, they have had a tent for Elvis performers. I knew they were going to have performers somewhere but wasn’t sure where. Later we found out that they had moved this to an open hall in the new Graceland Exhibition Center. This facility has four halls, three of which had non-Elvis related shows. It was nice to have the Elvis tent stuff moved into an air-conditioned area. One of the performers even referred to this part of the building as the Tent. We had been calling it the tent even before we heard him say it.
As with the previous two years, you had to purchase a wrist band to get into the Tent. This area was where most of the faithful Elvis fans gathered so it was the best area for people watching. One of my favorite moments was after a performance by the winner of the 2018 Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist contest, Ben Thompson. Ben is from London and has been coming to Elvis Week for 7 years. I was standing near the corner of the room when he left the stage. He made his way to this corner, followed by a large group of fans. I took some pictures and time lapsed video of the fans coming to get pictures, autographs, hugs and kisses. There are several of these tribute artists that are all about the same age who have been doing this since they were small children. They have been guided to be good singers and performers. For them coming to Elvis Week is like a big family reunion. Their fellow tribute artists were the ones they ran around with when they were little. They still hang out together during the vigil ceremony. Most years we run into them in the streets playing guitar and singing around the shrines set up in the road. This year, they were hanging out next to the main building at the Visitor’s center where they would get less attention. During their performances in the tent, they would bring each other up and swap verses and lines of familiar Elvis songs. A couple of them had a shake-off during one of the songs. They share their experiences of growing up with yearly trips to Graceland, along with experiences on the road performing as Elvis and support each other as fellow winners of the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist competition.