Elvis’ Onstage Humiliation Prompted His Musical Director to Disgustedly Call Him ‘All F***ed Up’

On New Year’s Eve, Elvis Presley got onstage and almost immediately embarrassed himself. He had been nervous about the show because of the crowd size and stage layout. The quick embarrassment didn’t help anything. While Elvis’ music director would never have said anything to the musician’s face, he turned to another onlooker in disgust.

Elvis Presley’s nerves led to a rough time onstage

At the end of 1975, Elvis played a concert in Pontiac, Michigan, to his largest live audience yet. Though Elvis was nervous to play to the large audience, he gave the performance his all. This almost immediately became a problem, as he ripped his pants in his exuberance. 

When this happened, his musical director, Joe Guercio, looked to comedian Jackie Kahane in disgust.

“He’s all f***ed up,” Guercio said, per the book Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick. 

Still, Elvis continued to play the show, and the audience walked away content. Afterward, though, it was clear he wasn’t happy.

“After the show he just exploded,” his friend T.G. Sheppard said. “Linda [Thompson] just sat and let it happen. A lot of stuff had been rubbing him that day.”

He did not let anyone criticize his performances

Though Guercio found the performance embarrassing, he never would have said this to Elvis. The musician wouldn’t have let him. He never liked to hear any criticism.

“But from the beginning Elvis had insisted: ‘I just want to read positive reviews. I don’t want to hear any negativity.’ As a teenager he’d been shielded by [his mother] Gladys from criticism,” Priscilla Presley wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “When she’d filled her albums and scrapbooks, she’d used only the favorable clippings.”

Priscilla believed that his absolute unwillingness to hear even constructive criticism hurt his career.

“If he hadn’t been so sheltered, he might have had a better perspective on his career,” Priscilla wrote. “At least he’d have been aware of what was being written about him and possibly used some of the comments constructively.”

Priscilla Presley said Elvis began to parody himself onstage toward the end of his life

Elvis’ unwillingness to hear criticism and his growing boredom with his career began to impact his performances. Priscilla believed that he veered into self-parody at the end of his life.

“The style, grace, and pride that for the past eight years had been the hallmark of a Presley live performance now bordered on self-parody,” she wrote. “Frustrated with the lack of challenge of each passing show, Elvis resorted to sheer flamboyance, symbolized by his costumes, each more elaborate than the one before, loaded with an overabundance of fake stones, studs, and fringes. There were voluminous capes and cumbersome belts to match.”

Priscilla believed Elvis was still incredibly talented, but he seemed unwilling to put his abilities on display. Instead, he relied on over-the-top costumes to keep his audience’s attention.