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An Elvis enthusiast has a lot of entertainment to choose from these days, from multiple versions of songs and live shows to various live performances on DVD (as well as which of E's flicks one can watch without feeling more than a little ashamed).

Then, when you decide which live performance you want to watch, you have to choose which version you want to spend your time with. Case in point: the two disc special edition DVD of "Aloha From Hawaii" that came out a few years ago. Not only can you watch the TV special as it originally appeared on NBC in April of 1973 (with four extra songs taped after the show with no audience present and shots of Hawaii shown behing Elvis), but you can watch a new edit of the complete concert (without a lot of the "dated" effects (as the liner notes call them) and the extra songs) with souped up sound and video. Then, there's the so-called "Alternate Aloha" rehearsal show that was taped the night before (with an audience in attendance) that some say is actually better than the main concert. Also, you can see 17 minutes of The King's arrival in Hawaii, and the extra, post-show songs in their entirety (complete with false starts and screwed up takes).

That's a lot to choose from.

Since I watched the original TV version when I got this set a year or so ago (I personally like the "dated" visuals -- perhaps it's my intense nostalgia for an era that I wasn't even alive in), I decided to watch the new edit version of Aloha from Hawaii. It rocked.

When I first saw the Aloha concert about a year ago, I had just come off of watching "That's The Way It Is" a bunch of times. In that 1970 concert film, Elvis hadn't been doing Vegas that much and his performance is excellent - he's slim, full of energy, and creates some great music. Most importantly, he moves around a lot.

Knowing that Aloha is one of the fans' most coveted performances, I was ready to be blown away. Instead, when I saw a slightly pudgy, plastic, sluggish Elvis looking kinda stoned and barely moving around on stage, I got really sad. His eyes were closed most of the time he was singing and it seemed like he was having to focus all of his energy on just singing the songs right. It was my first real experience with seeing Elvis's decline and it kinda bummed me out.

Sure, I'd read Peter Guralnick's great bio Careless Love a couple of times before that, and while depressing, I still couldn't really see the effects of his self-abuse with my own eyes. Six or seven years ago (when I was first getting into Elvis and didn't know really anything) I rented a video of This Is Elvis, the 1980 documentary (of sorts), which is the only officially-released video with footage from the 1977 In Concert film, and seeing him fat and out of it didn't depress me like watching Aloha did.

Anyway, after seeing Blue Hawaii last night at the public library (in their Friday night series of Elvis movies throughout the month of July) I thought I'd give Aloha another try. I didn't expect much, and maybe that's why I found myself really enjoying the performance and not being bummed out.

Sure the King looks a little out of it at first, but he does snap out of it part way through the show. He still gives some passionate performances and jokes a little with the crowd. Sure, it's not up to the level of his concerts from just a few years before, but considering that he had just gotten divorced form Priscilla and was really starting to unravel, it's not that bad.

So these are the questions I pose to myself after writing this rather long, rambling series of thoughts on Aloha From Hawaii: am I getting to the point in my love for Elvis that I am able to forgive his mediocre moments? Is my love for Elvis making me blind to the crap that some of it really is? Is the image towering over his artistic achievement in my mind?

Does it matter?

Probably not. Long live The King.