Parkes says thank you very much to Elvis
Stephanie Gardiner |
They have the wigs, the flares, the gold glasses and the bejewelled suits, but Scott McAleer and Darren Hinge don’t consider themselves professional Elvis impersonators.
“We’re professionals at making people happy,” Mr McAleer told AAP at the Parkes Elvis Festival.
Mr McAleer, a firefighter from Jervis Bay, and Mr Hinge, an electronics technician from Brisbane, came to the festival in central west NSW purely to delight fans at Australia’s biggest Elvis celebration.
“They squeeze the hell out of you because they think you’re Elvis – they’re that in love with the bloke,” Mr McAleer said.
“We’re here just to make people laugh and have a great time.”
Mr Hinge said magic happens as soon as they pull on their polyester jumpsuits, complete with glittering collars and red flared pants.
“It can take us two hours to walk 200 metres down the main street, but we love it.”
The friends dress up as other rock stars, including KISS, when bands tour Australia, but they never get a better response than when they become the king.
“The demographics here are those who grew up with Elvis, and they carry on the tradition,” Mr McAleer said.
“He was such an amazing performer.”
On Friday, some of Australia’s best Elvis tribute artists will vie for a place in the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest semi-final, to be held in Memphis in August.
The winner of the Miss Priscilla competition, a pageant honouring Elvis’s glamorous wife, will begin her role as a festival ambassador, alongside US tribute artists Dean Z and Victor Trevino Jr.
The festival is celebrating its 30th anniversary, having started as a small dinner and dance in 1993 to attract visitors during the dry heat of a country summer.
About 24,000 revellers are expected to celebrate this year’s theme of Blue Hawaii, one of Presley’s three musical films set on the island, with many dressing in leis, floral shirts and grass skirts.
Tribute artist Dean Vegas surprised Cowra band Plus One by joining them as they busked on Clarinda Street on Thursday afternoon.
He gave $50 to the young musicians as they launched into an Elvis cover.
“There goes my drinking money,” Mr Vegas told the crowd.
“These guys are going to be stars – remember me when you’re famous.”
Mr Vegas’s tribute act has taken him to China, Las Vegas, Dubai and Sweden, and earned him fans from Elvis’s birthplace, Tupelo, Mississippi.
“Elvis was my idol. I never thought one day I would be doing this as a profession,” Mr Vegas told AAP.
“Everything I own, I say thank you to Elvis.”
AAP
