If Elvis Presley were still alive, he'd turn 74 on Thursday. Would he still have hair? Would he have lost the battle with the waistline? Or would he have taken a turn for the better?
"Suppose he got on a physical fitness kick?" wonders Mike Geier, leader and avatar of big band Kingsized and the rockingest Elvis interpreter in Atlanta. "I see him as that skinny 70-something-year-old guy, walking into the coffee shop every morning at 8 a.m. with his bike shoes on."
Hmmm. A skinny Elvis sounds like a skinny Santa Claus. But Geier is known for taking Elvis into new, uncharted territory, booming out versions of "Purple Rain" as the King might have. He's done Elvis in a tuxedo and Elvis in drag.
Geier and his 12-piece band, plus 12 dancers, put on special Vegas-worthy Elvis shows twice every year, right around Elvis' Jan. 8 birthday and his Aug. 16 death day. On Jan. 10, Kingsized will be celebrating the birth of the King at that Little Five Points gem, the Variety Playhouse.
Six-foot-8 and smooth as a cue ball, Geier is not an impersonator. He does not don the jumpsuit, but simply gives life to the great songbook that was the Elvis repertoire. Slightly risque "new burlesque" performances by the Kingsized dance troupe, Dames Aflame, led by Geier's wife, Shannon Newton, add a kind of tongue-in-cheek salacity to the production.
As he motored about town recently on holiday errands, Geier spoke about preparations for the show.
Q: What is your audience like?
A: The demographic is kind of interesting. I know of 8-year-olds that are there, and last year I met a 93-year-old woman at the show. I'm not kidding you. Every age group is there.
Q: Eight-year-olds?
A: People I've been playing for [since 1996], they've gotten older, now they bring their kids to the show.
Q: And how do the kids like the hoochie-coochie?
A: The burlesque that we have in the Elvis show, it's kind of by name only. It's Vegas. The girls bring a little bit of a naughty element to it, but it's not vulgar. It is a celebration of beauty and entertainment, a celebration of razzle-dazzle. I think the kids get that, and I think the parents who bring their kids to it get that as well.
Q: What can people expect at this show?
A: Besides phenomenal entertainment?
Q: Right.
A: I've changed up some of the tunes, brought back some tunes from many years ago, added some new ones. We've got nice new costuming, new dancers with Dames Aflame, and the level of production has been increased.
Q: You sometimes add non-Elvis tunes, [including "Kashmir" and "Born to Run"].
A: It's a new concept. We open the show and close the show with songs that would have been done by Elvis, or should have been, or he would eventually have done. That's my theory. I always ask myself: W.W.E.D.? What Would Elvis Do?
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