"Elvis" in Thailand

Elvis Presley impersonators (often kindly referred to as “tribute” acts) always kind of give me the creeps. It’s the pompadour, the 1970s White Leathers, the exaggerated sneer and clumsy caricaturing that have always made them seem strange, I guess. If you’ve ever had to sit with an Elvis fan and squirm through one of these “living wakes” with a polite smile on your face you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Please understand I’m not making fun of them here, but fake sideburns pasted onto a face covered in pancake makeup while the man does his earnest best to sing in a language he’s far from skilled in misses the mark by a country mile – or kilometer, if you’re of the metric mind.

However, since I’ve had a number of requests (well, zero is a number) for information on places where you can see Elvis impersonators in Thailand one answer is the Asia Hotel in Bangkok. I’ve been through there a few times over the years and seen one or another of them performing at dinnertime in the Tivoli coffee shop that’s open to the lobby area.

The sign pictured here is incorrect: mercifully they don’t make the guy sing for thirteen and a half hours per shift, but – trust me on this one – ninety minutes is more than sufficient.

While banging along over the extended road construction on Thappraya Road in the back of a baht bus last month I noticed a sign for another of these acts in Pattaya, but I was unable to make note of it at the time. Maybe someone would leave a comment below with the name of the place.