Elvis seen in Jakarta, Medan

By Paul W. Blair

JAKARTA (JP): In an age when the still-breathing Elvis Presley is most often spotted waiting patiently in a 7-Eleven check-out line or holding down some low-profile job in a motorcycle repair shop or bowling alley ("Yeah, I decided to live the rest of my life outside the public eye," he's usually quoted as saying), its a real pleasure to see the King back up there on the stage where he belongs.

His Jakarta admirers had that opportunity on Tuesday and Wednesday evening when a production called Elvis Lives was presented at the Shangri-La Hotel's ballroom. What's more, those of his fans who live in Medan will have the same chance tonight when the same two-hour extravaganza, complete with a nine-member band and five back-up singers, is staged at the Tiara Hotel Convention Center.

Elvis Lives stars Max Pellicano, who's been doing Elvis onstage for 18 years. In other words, he's been impersonating Elvis since even before the star's death in 1977. Max says that he regrets not ever having seen Elvis perform live; a sudden snowstorm kept him from attending on the one night he'd planned to. But his press kit notes that he is the only Elvis impersonator who's been formally acknowledged by Graceland. Members of the Presley family are said to have enjoyed his show. So have audiences throughout the U.S., Australia and a number of Asian nations.

When speaking with reporters, Max always makes a point of noting that he doesn't walk around all day as Elvis. Instead, he only adopts that persona during the course of his act and regards himself simply as an actor. The fact is, though, that he has really gotten Presley: the singing and speaking voices, the strut, the gyrations, the karate chops to cue the band and even the rhythm of the half mumbled quips between songs.

There are now said to be at least 6,000 professional or semi- pro Elvis impersonators at work around the world. These are carefully detailed, incidentally, in I Am Elvis, a biographical directory of Elvis clones published by Pocket Books in 1991. But Max Pellicano is surely one of the most musical and most genuinely entertaining of them all.

Cellular phone

For many years, Max handled the Elvis segment in a lavish production called Legends in Concert at various Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos. Now he is the show. The review he has brought to Indonesia has him singing more than two-dozen of Elvis' biggest hits and is divided into three sections: mid- Fifties Elvis, with Max in a glittering gold lame outfit doing eleven early hits like Blue Suede Shoes and Jailhouse Rock; a Sixties segment, when Max emerges in a black leather suit for twelve more songs ranging from Don't to Viva Las Vegas and a Seventies tribute, where Max dons that famous white eagle get-up, that includes a repertoire stretching from Burning Love through to I Can't Help Falling in Love With You.

This last number makes an effective show-closer, with Max donning the same kind of cape that Elvis used to wear in later years to conceal the fact that he'd puffed up considerably around the middle. Not surprisingly, Max Pellicano remains slim and athletic throughout the review. Replicating Elvis' weight gain onstage would surely tax the capabilities of even the cleverest costumer and the most proficient makeup artist.

Max's Jakarta audiences were perhaps a bit less demonstrative than he is used to, with minimal applause between songs. There was no constantly flashing cameras and no hysterical screaming by middle-aged female fans of the sort that used to mark Elvis concerts. But the crowd did warm considerably during the Love Me Tender segment when Max walked slowly through the audience, microphone in hand, draping colored silk scarves around the necks of a dozen women. All seemed most appreciative. During a pause between songs, a cellular phone began ringing -- something that never happened during Elvis' time on the planet.

Elvis Presley himself never performed in Indonesia or anywhere else in Asia. In fact, because his manager Colonel Tom Parker was an American immigrant without proper papers, he feared for his own status and never booked Presley beyond the U.S. and Canada, despite million-dollar offers from promoters in other countries. Years later, Max Pellicano is correcting that oversight by taking his Elvis show on the international road. Presley fans in Medan would be wise to grab the chance to hear him tonight.