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Elvis Presley Walked Onstage After Midnight and Sang to an Audience Far Beyond Hawaii

The Night Elvis Presley Turned One Honolulu Concert Into a Global Television Event

More Than 6,000 Fans Saw Elvis in Hawaii While Satellites Carried Him Overseas

Best pick: Elvis Presley Walked Onstage After Midnight and Sang to an Audience Far Beyond Hawaii

Elvis Presley Walked Onstage After Midnight and Sang to an Audience Far Beyond Hawaii

Just after midnight on January 14, 1973, Elvis Presley stood backstage in Honolulu preparing for something no rock star had attempted on this scale before.

Inside the Honolulu International Center Arena, more than 6,000 fans were waiting.

Outside Hawaii, television audiences across parts of Asia and Oceania were waiting too.

At approximately 12:30 a.m. local time, the opening notes of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” filled the arena.

Then Elvis walked out wearing his now-famous white American Eagle jumpsuit.

Within seconds, he launched into “See See Rider.”

James Burton was on guitar. Ronnie Tutt drove the performance from the drums. Jerry Scheff played bass, while the Sweet Inspirations, J.D. Sumner and the Stamps and the Joe Guercio Orchestra helped create the enormous sound surrounding Elvis.

But this was much more than another Elvis concert.

The program was called Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite.

The January 14 performance was transmitted live by satellite to audiences in Asia and Oceania, including markets such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia. European countries received the program later on delay, while American viewers had to wait until April 4, 1973, when NBC broadcast an edited version.

Elvis Presley – “See See Rider” From Aloha From Hawaii

The official footage captures the opening performance exactly as audiences saw Elvis that night.

The scale of the broadcast quickly became part of Elvis legend.

RCA and Colonel Tom Parker promoted claims that the program reached more than one billion viewers worldwide. Elvis’s official site still describes the eventual audience as billion-plus, although historians and researchers have questioned whether that figure could realistically be verified.

What is not in doubt is the program’s reach.

It was shown in more than 40 countries, broke viewing records in several international markets and became NBC’s highest-rated program of 1973 when the American version aired.

The concert also changed Elvis’s record career.

RCA rushed out the accompanying double album, which climbed to No. 1 on both Billboard’s pop and country album charts. It became Elvis’s first No. 1 album in years.

That is why Aloha from Hawaii still feels different from a normal concert film.

The 6,000 people inside the arena could see Elvis only a few feet away.

Millions more experienced him through a satellite signal crossing oceans.

And Elvis knew the stakes were enormous.

On one stage in Honolulu, after midnight, Elvis Presley turned a concert into an international television event and carried his voice farther than it had ever traveled before.