International Hotel Las Vegas — Elvis's comeback residency

The International Hotel at 3000 Paradise Road in Las Vegas — now the Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino — opened on July 2, 1969, as the largest hotel in the world. On July 31, 1969, its main showroom hosted Elvis Presley's return to live performance: his first concert in eight years, since his last tour date in 1961 before retiring from live work to focus on films. He performed fifty-seven consecutive sold-out shows over the following weeks to audiences of around 2,000 people per show. It was, by virtually every contemporary account, one of the greatest comeback performances in the history of popular entertainment.

Elvis had spent the 1960s making increasingly mediocre films and increasingly formulaic records, his creativity constrained by Colonel Tom Parker's management priorities and his own willingness to accommodate them. The 1968 NBC television special — the so-called Comeback Special — had demonstrated that the talent was intact. The International Hotel residency was the proof. He performed with a large band and backup singers, combining his 1950s material with recent recordings, moving across a stage with the physical authority and precision that made him, in 1969, convincingly the most magnetic live performer in American popular music.

He returned to the International Hotel — and then its successor properties at the same address — for regular Las Vegas residencies throughout the 1970s, accumulating a relationship with the city that came to define his later career. The hotel has changed names and owners multiple times; the showroom where he performed remains and still hosts concerts. A life-size bronze statue of Elvis in his Las Vegas-era jumpsuit stands at the entrance to the Westgate property.