Elvis Presley died 40 years ago today. Just weeks before his death, “The King” performed his final concert in Indianapolis.
Some of the people there may have had a clue that Elvis was sick.
“The show was magnificent. I said, ya know I’m really glad we did this. Who knows if we could ever do this again? Little did we realize what was gonna happen,” said Dave Parker, of Anderson, who attended the show with Randy, a buddy from college who was into Elvis.
“I had never seen Elvis live before, but I think some of them had before and they’d noticed a change. They wanted Elvis to be never-ending and I think some of them had a clue that night,” said Parker.
The show at Market Square Arena was decent, according to accounts by people who were there. But, it was obvious Elvis was not well.
“I remember he was in vocal form that was less than I expected. But, his enthusiasm was there,” said Parker.
“We all knew that he wasn’t well. His voice was good. But, he just didn’t look well,” said Jaque Quick, of Indianapolis, who attended the Market Square Arena show with a friend. “He really looked terrible. He really looked bad-not realizing what was going on with him.”
Still, Quick and Parker were both surprised to hear the news of Presley’s death.
“Even though he looked terrible, and he was swollen. But, I guess you just don’t think about it,” said Quick, who heard the news from a cashier at the grocery store. “I said na. No.”
“I found as we looked at other Elvis fans across American, I found that attitude was very similar. They just didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t believe it. Refused to believe it,” said Parker.
Elvis performed that night at 10-pm preceded by warm-up acts of brass bands, soul singers. Elvis sang to the crowd of 18,000 for about 80 minutes.
