Poster for Elvis’ Last Concert
While reminiscing during this Elvis week, I pulled out some old concert posters that had been given to me as a gift upon leaving my first post-collegiate job. My co-workers knew I was a huge Elvis Presley and impressed me greatly with these gifts. One of them is a poster advertising what would be Elvis’ last concert in Indianapolis, Indiana. The other was for a concert that never happened on August 12, 1977. Although Elvis didn’t die until August 16, 1977, he wasn’t able to make a few concerts after the one in Indianapolis. I love how that poster says to ‘Call Leah Rutan for Tickets’.
A poster for an Elvis concert that never happened. It was just 4 days before his death.
I wasn’t really sure what other concerts had been planned that never happened, so I started looking it up and found some pretty good information at Elvis Presley In Concert. While reading the article Feelings and Thoughts about 1977, there was mention about one of my favorite Elvis stories. The story was about how Elvis broke up a fight at a gas station in Madison, WI. There were two boys beating up on the son of the gas station owner and apparently Elvis saw this and directed the limo over so that he could assist by evening the odds of the fight. When the boys saw Elvis, who was still in a blue jumpsuit, the fight was over. Elvis didn’t leave until everyone had cooled off and shook hands.
I never realized until reading about his 1977 tour just how ill he had been all year and yet this incident happened around a day before his last concert. As sick as he was, he still went out of his way to help folks like this. Impressive.
