Elvis tribute show comes to Squamish

One of the first things Randy “Elvis” Friskie makes clear to people he meets is that he isn’t an Elvis Presley impersonator. Instead, Friskie says, he pays tribute to the so-called King of rock and roll.

“Sometimes when I see guys who over do it and talk like they are Elvis, it kind of bothers me,” Friskie acknowledged.

Friskie is touring his popular Elvis tribute performance with his Las Vegas Show Band, and will make a stop at the Squamish Legion on Saturday, Nov. 18.

He is a musician first and foremost — he plays four instruments — who loves to entertain, he told The Chief.

“When you are up there, you are trying to make people happy and let them relive memories and people who don’t have [memories] yet, you want to make good ones,” he said, adding his audience can run the gamut from 19-year-olds to 90-year-olds.

Some who come out to see him remember Elvis, some weren’t born when he died, Friskie said.

Anyone who comes out to the Squamish show can expect, “a full Elvis show from the 50s to the 70s,” said Friskie, who is back in Canada after touring his show through Europe.

In addition to the Elvis favourites, he and his band will also perform a set of songs from other artists including songs by Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, Keith Urban and even Bruno Mars.

“It is just so diverse,” he said of his show. “They get a little bit of everything. I want people to dance.”

Though he has been performing for decades, Friskie is still known for his energy on stage with many of his shows running three hours long.

“I just jump up on tables or bars, or whatever I have to do,” he said.

He likes to make each show a little bit like a Las Vegas show, he said, no matter what the venue.

Friskie performed in Vegas for many years consecutively and still does shows there twice a year, and so the October shooting of 58 people and wounding of 500 more at a country concert hit him hard.  

“It was brutal,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. The community there… is very tightknit. When you have people just going out to be entertained and something like this happens, it is completely ridiculous. It is crazy.”

But Friskie said his job is to make people happy and that is what he wants to continue to do.

He hangs on to what his father, who was also a musician, told him about entertaining audiences no matter what else is going on in the country or in people’s lives.

“When they are sad, they are down, they still want to be entertained,” Friskie recalled.

Randy "Elvis" Friskie Live @ The Legion (40194 Glenalder Pl.) is on Saturday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. Call 604-898-9368 for more info.