Following on a little from my previous article The Hyperreal World of the Tribute Band (here→), I thought it appropriate to write about my visit to the Porthcawl Elvis Festival because Elvis Presley probably has the most tribute acts world-wide. In 2011 I had the privilege of being invited to the 8th Porthcawl Elvis Festival by the organiser Peter Phillips (the Michael Evis of the Elvis world). I had wanted to go and visit but had never got around it. However in 2011, fortune smiled on me, and time opportunity and a useful press pass all came together at the same time, so I leapt at the chance.
Terry Breverton suggested in his book, The A-Z of Wales and the Welsh (2000) that Elvis had Welsh roots. There are the Preseli Hills (also spelled Presely) in north Pembrokeshire, in the same area there is a parish called Saint Elvis and with a voice like his, who would doubt some Welsh roots?
I arrived on the Friday to Porthcawl and although I had been there as a young child, I had little memory of the town. There is a Gaelic word ‘Uaigneas ‘ which means the type of loneliness and sadness that you revel in, sort of like listening to a Smiths song and you could describe these British seaside towns as the architectural equivalent of a Smiths song. They are towns that have been left on the margins of the UK to try and survive with very little investment.
During the Elvis festival weekend, the town welcomes visitors with their Elvis themed signs and posters, their ‘stars and stripes’ flags and even Elvis themed food and drink menus. The local Subway even had a celebratory Elvis Sub.
The High Street leads onto the Esplanade that runs along the length of the beach and is mainly populated by hotels and bars, but at the centre of this stands the Grand Pavilion, an impressive building that has been standing since 1932 and sort of equivalent to Glastonbury’s pyramid stage.
The other streets leading off the esplanade were made up of small hotels, bars and cafes. One of these was the Brentwood and for the festival it had become The Heartbreak Hotel. The High-Tide Bar (the third of the main Elvis venues) had two vast marquees that had non-stop Elvis tribute acts.
Thousands of people attend the Porthcawl Elvis Fest’, every year and it is the biggest of its kind in the world, outside Vegas, (according to Elvis’s tour manager and he’s been to a few). Those dressed as Elvis like to be known as Elvis Tribute Artists (ETAs) and you will find out very quickly that they do not like being referred to as ‘Elvis impersonators’. The Grand Pavilion has a sizable stage, and the seating is arranged around large tables like a Vegas floor show. Over the weekend there were lunchtime ETA competitions and I saw the first one of these on the Saturday. All the acts were good, but the outstanding one from that first session was a guy called Andy Wood, who went on to be the overall winner, and is worth checking out on YouTube to get an idea of what I mean.
There were some who had the voice of Elvis, others who looked so much like Elvis it was spooky and others who had the moves and the patter, but there were only four or five who had all of these attributes. These Elvis doubles were the crème de la crème of the ETA world and headlined the main shows. One of the best of these was Jaun Lazano (now retired). I saw Mr Lazano on the Friday night at the Heartbreak Hotel on a small intimate stage and he was wearing a very cool 1960s suit and played the part of a 1960s Elvis extremely well. His name might suggest different, but Jaun is a Welshman from just up the road in Merthyr Tydfil, but it is very strange watching someone who is so much like the original in a bar full of people dressed in clothing that wouldn’t look out of place in a Mississippi bar (I knew learning how to spell Mississippi at school would come in handy one day).
Jaun Lazano at the Heartbreak Hotel 
A Few Elvis TAs outside the Heartbreak HotelThe Heartbreak Hotel (the Brentwood) was where most of the ETAs hung out and was my favourite of the venues. It had a live backing band and any one of a number of ETAs could get up and do a few songs on the small stage at any time.
The King on Porthcawl PromenadeOn the Friday I Googled Elvis’s catalogue of work and over such a short life he recorded over 700 songs. Sadly this wasn’t reflected in the festival, and it was obvious there were some favourite numbers amongst the performers. There was the Sun Records Elvis, the leather clad Comeback Special Elvis, the G.I. Elvis’, and there was of course the Vegas White Jump Suit Elvis’s or ‘Elvi’ (which seems to fit as a plural). The Vegas Elvi made up about 70% of the ETAs, but thankfully their range of songs was broad (ish). However, out of the 700 recorded songs, I can only remember about 50 or so being performed. Although I have always loved American Trilogy, I think by the end of the festival I had probably heard it enough times. The Elvis at the Movies show was far more varied and included some songs that I rarely hear. I know it might be blasphemy, but I never really thought of Elvis as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, that is a crown that Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis should wear, but Elvis was most definitely the King of Vegas and from 1968 to 1975 he was the King of cabaret performers and although his Sun recordings are often considered his best, I was always a fan of his Vegas period. The great thing about the festival is if the main venues are sold out, you can still get to see the acts in a number of bars around the town for free.
Overall the weekend was a curious mix of time travel and groundhog day, it was like going to a music festival where all the acts are the same. But each ETA had their own way of performing their tribute, which made it different enough to enjoy. As well as me, there were other photographers from all over the world and there was the Welsh Tourist Board, the BBC and even a group making a documentary for the Discovery Channel. If you are not a fan of Elvis, this may not be your thing, but if you’ve ever been partial to a song or two from the King of Vegas, then it is essential that you make the pilgrimage to the Porthcawl Elvis Fest at least once. It is without a doubt the most amazing Elvis experience you can have outside Vegas, and it occurs every September in a small seaside town in Wales.
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images by Martin Devenney
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