Behind the Gates at Graceland – Rolling Stone

Pals Jeanene Erdahl and Lisa Larson drove all night time from Minnesota to Graceland, arriving in Memphis at 4:30 within the morning to queue up for a memorial honoring the lifetime of Lisa Marie Presley, who died final week at 54. Later as we speak, they’ll flip round and do it once more.

Erdahl and Larson, who grew to become quick mates seven years in the past after bonding over their mutual love of Elvis, watched the memorial service simply steps from the place mourners like Axl Rose and Alanis Morissette have been paying musical tribute to the one youngster of Elvis and Priscilla Presley.

“She was a part of our era, and [we] watched her undergo struggles in her life and overcome them,” Erdahl tells Rolling Stone. “She had energy and character and pizzazz, and he or she simply appeared so enjoyable.”

Mourners traveled from world wide to pay their respects to Lisa Marie, a gifted musician herself, in addition to the caretaker of her father’s legacy for many of her life. Debbie Ramage of Courtenay, British Columbia, was planning to lastly go to Graceland subsequent yr on her sixtieth birthday, however determined to return now as a substitute to pay her respects to the household. “I feel she was sensible,” Ramage says of Lisa Marie. “She was very very like her father. She’s obtained that lovely spirit like her dad, and he or she was a good looking singer.”

Beneath a chilly, grey winter sky in Memphis, household, mates, and a crowd of mourners estimated within the 1000’s gathered in entrance of a stage arrange simply behind the gates of Graceland — the mansion Elvis purchased in 1957 and the house the place Lisa Marie spent her first 4 years. Attendees lined the round drive and stretched towards the stone wall operating alongside the north aspect of the property as a succession of company, from Priscilla Presley to Memphis Mafia alum Jerry Schilling, took the dais. As every speaker entered and exited the tent, the group — unprompted — raised aloft images of Lisa Marie and waved them in tribute.

Like the general temper, the musical performances have been principally somber, with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins (whose friendship with Lisa Marie dates to their 2003 collaboration “Savior”) enjoying the Adore minimize “To Sheila” on an acoustic guitar. Alanis Morissette took the stage with a pianist to sing “Relaxation,” which she wrote after Chester Bennington’s suicide in 2017 and launched for Psychological Well being Motion Day in 2021. 

Then in a shock look that might solely be overshadowed by a cameo from Elvis himself, Axl Rose emerged. Wearing an extended darkish coat and scarf, the Weapons N’ Roses frontman, weak and emotional, stood behind the rostrum at Graceland and admitted he was tongue-tied and nervous about being requested to talk on the memorial. “I’m nonetheless in shock, as I really feel like I’ll proceed to be for fairly a while,” Rose, a longtime buddy of Lisa Marie, mentioned. “I really feel like I’m alleged to be texting her like proper now.” He adopted his remarks, learn from his cellphone, by taking a seat on the grand piano and enjoying a fleet-fingered rendition of GNR’s signature ballad, “November Rain.”

Following the just-over-an-hour service, the mourners — who have been requested to not {photograph} members of the family and company out of respect for Lisa Marie — quietly walked Graceland’s driveway to Lisa Marie’s ultimate resting place within the Meditation Backyard, the identical route that 1000’s of the Presley trustworthy take every August 15 as a part of the candlelight vigil to mark the anniversary of Elvis’ loss of life.

Wreaths despatched from Elvis fan golf equipment in Italy, Japan, Sweden, and Germany lined the walkway resulting in the backyard. A bouquet of white and crimson roses have been positioned close by, with a card studying “In Loving Reminiscence, From Axl Rose.” Mourners filed via slowly, first passing the graves of Elvis and his dad and mom, Gladys and Vernon, then curving round to pay respects at Lisa Marie’s grave subsequent to her son, Benjamin Keough, whose suicide in 2020 shattered Lisa Marie. Flowers, stuffed animals, and different mementoes surrounded their mausoleums, with one other bouquet of white roses — this one despatched by Oprah Winfrey — bridging them.

After paying her respects, Katrina McElyea of Memphis — whose mom was a nurse for Elvis’ controversial doctor, Dr. George Nichopoulos, and who often performs Elvis’ mom in reenactments of his life — mirrored on Lisa Marie’s reminiscence and what she meant to the worldwide Elvis neighborhood.

“She was somebody who cared about not simply her household and her father’s legacy; she cared in regards to the followers, she cared in regards to the tribute artists,” McElyea says. “She genuinely liked each one in every of us, and to be right here and provides again even a fraction of that love is actually particular for me.”