Elvis in supermarionation...

First off - I'm an Elvis fan ok - don't bite my head off.

Poor old Elvis was mis-managed and swimming way out of his depth for most of his career from the early 60's onwards and his "Comeback Concert" of 1968 was achance for him to get back to doing what he loved - singing rock and roll to a live audience, and indeed most of the televised gig is just that, and very good it is too - I have a dvd boxed set of it, its only a boxed set because they put the whole bloody thing across several dvd's so that you get the excellent 50 minute tv concert and then five hours of retakes and mistakes, rehearsals and lighting gaffs.

And then you get the closing number.

Removed from his live, in-the-round audience the producer obviously thought it would be great to close the show with a big gospel number and let Elvis let rip on it - well as the dvd shows it took many, many takes and retakes to create this, the most Gerry Anderson puppet inspired performance seen on tv - you can almost see the double sided sticky tape on the bottom of Elvis's shoes so that he doesn't stray off the stage marks and if you look hard enough you can see the strings tugging on his sleeve from above to make his arms swing back and forth like they do at the end.

Still, Colonel Parker must have thought it would suit his idea of an Elvis audience.