In August 1974 the king and his crew were back at RCA Studio C to prepare for another Vegas season. On the 16th of the month he focused on the new material. This makes the session quite interesting since some of the songs didn't last long on the set list. In some cases they were presented just once, in other cases they never made it past the rehearsal stage. In contrast to the session from 1970 this one wasn't professionally recorded. Ed Bonja, one of Colonel Parker's men and not connected to recording and audio tasks at all, simply used a cassette recorder to catch what's going on. The balance of instruments and voices is a mess, the harmony singers are absurdly loud while everything else becomes more or less a background noise. Maybe this was done on purpose, so Elvis could focus on his background singers and change some of their arrangements. It is said that all rehearsal sessions were taped for the king, but usually the tapes were destroyed or simply recorded over. However, the one from August 16th survived and was purchased by BMG (the owner of the Presley catalogue at the time) in the 1990s. I am pretty sure, that the audio quality could have been improved a lot if the material was treated with current AI technology like the one Peter Jackson used for the restauration of The Beatles' "Get Back" material. But I am also pretty sure that this would have been much too expensive considering the expected revenue of this release.

Just like the other rehearsal session on this set, this one also was previously released by Follow That Dream Records. Back in 2009 it was the core of an album called "From Sunset To Vegas", which also included some live performances from the "Elvis Summer Festival 1974". Since FTD never releases anything in digital form and the album is out of print, these recordings may also be new to some of the king's fans. By the way: When Follow That Dream Records released the rehearsal session in 2009, they cut the first try of "It's Midnight" to save the sensitive ones from their idol's rough language. Thankfully by 2025 the king's disciples were considered to be mentally stable enough to survive nasty words like "fucking".

Elvis must have been a fan of Olivia Newton-John, because he added "Let Me Be There" to his repertoire in January and now followed up with another one of her country-pop hits. For seven minutes he works on "If You Love Me (Let Me Know)", especially the ending is rehearsed. The first try sounds a bit tame, afterwards the king puts his foot on the gas. During the process he mentions, how much he likes the song. It certainly was true, because he would keep it in the show until the very end.

Now the singer suggests "Let's get down to the promised land". He sounds very motivated and cues his musicians in-between. During the second walkthrough Elvis repeats his joke from the actual recording sessions and sings "...and the motherfucker's on the line". Even though "Promised Land" turned out to be very popular amongst the fans, the king would rarely sing it during the "Elvis Summer Festival 1974" and the following tour. However, in March 1975 the tune would be part of the standard set list.

Charlie Hodge intones "Down In The Alley". His boss picks it up and within a few seconds the performance is on its way. After a few tries and tests the group is looking for an intro, which promptly is delivered by Glen D. Hardin. Afterwards there's a second rehearsal, which already sounds ready for the stage. Unfortunately Elvis would address this song just during the opening show and never sing it again.

The band begins to play and the king, who obviously is not prepared yet, amusedly joins in. He asks "Where are the fuckin' lyrics", but nevertheless appears to manage the task. At least until he erroneously skips a part of the tune and the performance falters. The group re-starts the the performance with the chorus and continues to the very end. Since the opening night is near, Elvis wants to manage a complete rendition of "It's Midnight" and starts all over again. This time everything works well. For good humor the king starts to sing the song in his Inspector-Clouseau-voice. He loved Peter Seller's performance in the "Pink Panther" movies and often imitated him for fun. He also intones "Ghost Riders In The Sky".

This is an interesting choice, because RCA hadn't released the track yet. The performance works very well and Elvis seems to like the song. Nevertheless he wouldn't sing it during the forthcoming season. "Your Love's Been A Long Time Coming" was also rehearsed for the following Vegas stint, but once again it wasn't performed on stage. However, during the opening show the band would play an instrumental version of it during the "Introductions".

Elvis doesn't meet the perfection of his studio recording, but that doesn't mean, that this is a bad performance. It's a rehearsal and therefore it works fine. "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues" was a great addition to the set list, but obviously the king thought differently and abandoned the song right after the opening show.

During the closing show of his previous "Summer Festival" the king performed a spoken version of "Softly, As I Leave You". Now he wants to include the ballad as a regular feature, but with a completely new arrangement. Sherrill Nielsen is going to sing the lead vocal while Elvis recites the lyrics. The song is rehearsed twice, in-between the king thinks about adding more instruments, but in the end he decides to leave the arrangement as simple as it is.

This rather complex ballad first appeared in concert after the release of the accordant single in 1971. It was also rehearsed the following year, but wasn't used on a regular basis since 1973. After the "Summer Festival" it once again disappeared from the set list. Elvis obviously likes the song, because he plans to include it in the forthcoming show, too. After several discussions and try-outs we get to hear a complete performance, which works very well.

The king announces the song as "The First Time I Saw Your Friggin' Face". It's played slower than during the previous concerts, which I like very much.

After his "Elvis Summer Festival 1972" the singer has combed out the CCR hit. The revival is based on the arrangement used on the album "Elvis As Recorded At Madison Square Garden". It's a zesty rendition. However, the king just sang "Proud Mary" on the first two days of the season. Afterwards the song disappeared for good.

The b-side of the single, a religious country song named "Help Me", was a regular feature of the Presley show since the beginning of the year, now he also wants to add "If You Talk In Your Sleep" to the set list. Because the brass players havn't joined the preparations yet, the song sounds vastly different. During the rehearsal Elvis discusses the intro and also works out some details of the finale.

Once again the king wants to work on "If You Love Me (Let Me Know)". It's a rather long session, he commits himself to the country pop for almost 15 minutes. Because JD Sumner doesn't participate today, Elvis tries to make Tim Baty singing as low as his boss and wonders, how the hell JD can produce so deep notes. However, the whole thing is quite useless, because during the concerts Mr. Sumner will do the job and there is no need to force Tim to do something, he's not capable of.

This ballad was rehearsed quite a few times before, but Elvis never sang it on stage. This wouldn't change during the final years of his life. Nevertheless this performance is very good, in the 1990s it was included on the boxed-set "Walk A Mile In My Shoes - The Essential 70s Masters". To promote the set BMG even planned a single release and had David Briggs overdubbing the recording. In the end this version never saw the light of the shops and also wasn't issued digitally.

Here we have another song, that was rehearsed on a regular basis in the past. But in contrast to "The Twelfth Of Never" Elvis has sung it live at least four times (all in 1973). The band has to start twice, because the king mixes it up with "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and looses his step. The second attempt works well, here and there Elvis changes the lyrics in non-G-rated fashion. His humor wasn't all that sophisticated, but it's quite funny when he turns the line "when I think of the past" into "when I think of your ass".

The rehearsal session ends with a song, that was included in the movie "That's The Way It Is", but (in contrast to the believe of many fans) never became a regular feature of the show. Even though the rehearsal works very well, Elvis wouldn't sing "Just Pretend" during the forthcoming Vegas stint or the following tours. However, he would revive the ballad in December 1975 and perform it even better than back in 1970.