Where were you when Elvis died?
Benny Borg takes on the unrivalled hit show! The tour starts on 8 January on what would have been Elvis' 90th birthday. The tour finishes on 16 August, the day Elvis died far too young at the age of 42.
Where Elvis himself had a huge apparatus, black-clad Benny Borg has only himself, his box guitar and a bar stool. Yet his one-man show is technicolour and widescreen.
There are more than 10,000 Elvis impersonators in the world today. Benny Borg is not one of them, and therein lies much of the strength of his simple and quiet Elvis concert.
It's full of recognisable elements, of course - the audience follows every breath of his voice, every moan, every ‘uh-ah-ha’ and every trembling ‘luv’ - but Borg hints at it rather than taking it all the way out, his hip movements are considerably more cultivated than in the original, and he offers his own melancholy commentary on a couple of the most famous songs, such as ‘Don't be Cruel’ and ‘Love Me Tender’.
Simple, but great.
Where Elvis himself had a huge apparatus, black-clad Benny Borg has only himself, his box guitar (amplified) and a bar stool, as well as a white, sequinned jumpsuit with a red scarf as decoration. Yet his one-man show is technicolour and widescreen, both musically and as storytelling, spiced with personal memories, such as the festive meeting with Priscilla Presley in Los Angeles.
Strong memories
Without sentimentality, Benny Borg takes his listeners through 22 Elvis hits - from ‘Can't Help Falling in Love with You’ to ‘In the Ghetto’ - and through the rock king's life from birth, when his twin brother didn't make it.
He shows the development from Elvis being a poor, young, slim and ambitious rock'n'roll inventor from the South, to him ending up a few billion dollars later as a twisted and bloated junkie, a god, but also a man who couldn't sleep with a woman who had given birth. This also applied to his own wife.
Borg creates a highly credible picture of the world's most famous person and one of the world's loneliest people, an immature and incorrigible womaniser, a generous tyrant, himself surrounded by yes-men and exploited to the utmost by ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker.
Tears
For those of us (there must be six or eight of us) who never understood that Elvis Presley was the absolute centre of the universe, it's fascinating to experience the strength with which the memory of the hip-swaying rocker lives on, almost thirty years after he left for the eternal hunting grounds. For the rest of humanity, i.e. all those who have unrestrainedly worshipped Elvis for half a century, the memory of his death in 1977 is still painful. The audience's tearful reactions in a packed house in the middle of the World Cup says a lot about them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Doors open at 12.45pm with Violetas pizza on sale.
ARE YOU COMING BY TRAIN?
It's not a long walk from Ogna station to Ogna Scene (15 min) but with Ogna Scene's Shuttle bus service, they pick up and drop off their fantastic audience members who are going to Ogna Scene at Ogna train station completely free of charge.
They arrange it so that those who take the train from Stavanger will be picked up at 12.50 (approx.). From Egersund 13.36 (approx.).
They will also bring you to the station after the concert.
Ogna Scene wants to make it easy and comfortable for you.
NB. They only have one car... If there are many people to be driven, there may be a 5-10 minute wait.