Here is a fact that surprises people. By 1972, Elvis Presley had been famous for sixteen years — and he had never played a concert in New York City. Not once.
There was a reason the city had been avoided, and everyone in the business knew it. New York had never really taken to him. In the fifties, while the rest of America screamed, the New York critics sneered. So a rumor hardened over the years: Elvis was frightened of the place. The crowds were too tough, the reviewers too vicious.
In June 1972, he finally went.
Elvis live at Madison Square Garden, 1972, 8mm footage in 4K
Colonel Parker booked three shows at Madison Square Garden. All three sold out immediately, so they added a fourth. Across that weekend — 9, 10 and 11 June — around 20,000 people came to each performance, roughly 80,000 in total.
Elvis became the first entertainer in history to sell out four consecutive shows at the Garden.
And look at who came to watch. Sitting in that audience across those nights were John Lennon, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Elton John, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel. The entire aristocracy of rock turned up to see the man who started it.
He walked out in a white jumpsuit with a gold-trimmed cape and, for the first few minutes, did almost nothing—just moved through a series of poses while twenty thousand camera flashes turned the arena into a strobe.
“Bridge Over Troubled Water,” Greensboro, April 1972
RCA recorded the Saturday show and put the album in shops nine days later — unheard of at the time. It went gold within weeks and is now triple platinum.
One thing the legend leaves out. Before that first show, Elvis reportedly paced backstage, so nervous he nearly didn’t go on. That afternoon, he gave a press conference at the New York Hilton and was funny, relaxed, and completely charming.
Both were true at once.