The Movable Buffet: Elvis(es) are alive and well in Las Vegas

Reporting from Las Vegas — The love affair between Elvis and Las Vegas remains undimmed, on the eve of the 33rd anniversary of the singer’s death. The most recent high-profile appearance of the King on the Strip, Cirque’s “Viva Elvis,” premiered earlier this year, bringing together without a hiccup the image of Elvis Presley’s eternally blue-collar sneer, jumpsuits and rhinestones along with his populist appeal somehow integrated seamlessly into a high-end 2010 luxury Vegas resort — sculpture by Henry Moore to stroll by, a Frank Stella behind the registration desk.

Elvis, who started his legendary Vegas years in 1969, is cool again not only because of the Cirque show at Aria. Rather, Elvis has never stopped being all things to most tourists. In Las Vegas, Elvis remains everywhere, a rare if not unique symbol of consistency in a town centered entirely on change. From the elites to the streets, everyone in Vegas still finds relevance in Elvis.

“We always have an Elvis in the show. He is the one celebrity the show always needs,” says Brian Brigner, chief operating officer of OnStage Entertainment, producer of Legends in Concert, the celebrity tribute show at Harrah’s. Nearby at Imperial Palace, an Elvis look-alike celebrity card dealer can be found. And local media recently spent days covering the nuptials of Pete Vallee, known as Big Elvis, weighing a few hundred pounds, who performs at Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon.

On Aug. 15, the once hugely popular Liberace Museum will be looking for an Elvis bounce by holding its first wedding. The minister for the ceremony will be an Elvis impersonator.

Jeff Victor, president of Fremont Street Experience, invokes the supernatural in describing the bond between the singer and Vegas: “Elvis has a magic to him that you can’t explain.... His contemporaries age, not Elvis.”

Downtown’s Fremont Street Experience offers tourists a gigantic cover canopy that is also a light show and screen uniting blocks of older casinos. This summer, the offerings include an Elvis tribute film projected above. On a recent Saturday underneath the canopy, an indigent, down-on-his-luck Elvis was offering to pose for photos, asking for some spare change. A few feet away, a pink Cadillac was parked with an Elvis offering to renew wedding vows. Near that, a small stage had a band playing songs made famous by Elvis. Andthe main stage was surrounded by more than 1,000 fans celebrating what was being dubbed “Ultimate Elvis Weekend,” with 23 Elvis impersonators from around the country competing.

The contest itself was part of an official Elvis impersonator event sponsored by the owners of Elvis’ image (the winner of the Vegas contest goes on to the finals in Memphis). But the show-stealing performance was by a non-competitor, 6-year-old Gabriel “the Storm” Jarrett. Blond, blue-eyed and in a jumpsuit, Jarrett did a hip-shaking and Elvis-sneer-filled medley of the King’s classics with his mom and dad beaming and the crowd exploding. Signing autographs after his cameo, Jarrett says he has done Elvis as long as he can remember. “I like being a rock star.”

To many of the contestants, including 20-year-old Tyler Hunter, who has been a professional Elvis for a year, doing Presley here in Vegas has a special significance. Hunter, a resident of Lincoln, Neb., took his first plane ride to compete here, though he noted he was not concerned about winning or losing. “I am performing in Vegas in front of thousands of people. And, that is something not a lot of people get to experience.... This town still looks like Elvis.”

One of the contest judges, singer and longtime Elvis friend Jimmy Velvet, says, “Elvis hated the movies he did before Vegas. He wanted to do a show bigger than it had ever been done before, and Vegas was perfect for that.”

Unlike others who saw the Vegas years as nothing but decline for Presley, Velvet prefers to emphasize the positive. “For the average person, Vegas might have been a grind but Elvis had tremendous energy. As long as he could get on stage and look an audience in the eye, he was happy. And, he was content and happy in Las Vegas. “

Can anyone top Elvis’ appeal? The hope is Michael Jackson can have an afterlife like Elvis. And, while there are plans for an MJ Cirque show, his connections to Vegas as a solo artist and a live performer are not nearly as deep.

Elvis opened in 1969 at the Las Vegas International, which soon became the Las Vegas Hilton, where he continued to play for most of the remainder of his life, with his last show there in 1976. What was amazing about his Vegas band is that he used two sets of background singers and packed the stage with instruments for an over-the-top dramatic sound captured on “On Stage” — which was reissued in an expanded edition in March.

Victor sees a metaphor for Vegas in Elvis’ experience as a headliner: “Elvis bombed in Vegas in the ‘50s. So, when he came back he reinvented himself at the International Hotel for when he called Vegas home. He came out with a new look for himself that really did fit Vegas because it was over the top and glitzy. Frank Sinatra was always Frank Sinatra. But Elvis was like Vegas. He wanted to please everyone and he made a new image and sound for himself in Vegas.”

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