Elvis shakes up Seattle on September 1, 1957.

  • By Cassandra Tate
  • Posted 7/10/2001
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 3440
See Additional Media

On September 1, 1957, rock star Elvis Presley performs at Sicks' Seattle Stadium, drawing an estimated 16,200 people (90 percent of them teenage girls) -- the biggest crowd for a single performer in Seattle up to this point.

He Shook, He Shivered...

Presley, backed up by the Jordonaires quartet and by a drum, guitar, and bass trio, "shook, shivered, slumped, slouched and staggered" though a 45-minute set that kept the crowd on its feet and screaming from the first note to the last (The Seattle Times). What would prove to be his only performance in Seattle was preceded by one earlier that day in Tacoma and by concerts in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Spokane the day before.

The show began with "Heartbreak Hotel" and ended with "Hound Dog." Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as "the Elvis Presley national anthem," sang two choruses, and shot off the stage while his guitarist played eight more bars. Almost before anyone knew it, the tail lights of his rented Cadillac had disappeared through a gate in the right field fence.

Police described the crowd as reasonably well behaved. The only report of damage was the theft of a tail light from a convertible that someone mistook for Presley's.


Sources:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 1, 1957; Ibid., September 2, 1957; The Seattle Times, September 2, 1957; Lee Cotton, Did Elvis Sing in Your Hometown? (Sacramento, CA: High Sierra Books, 1995).


Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You