This ‘EPiC’ rock star gets the final word in the Elvis concert movie

Kim Willis, USA TODAYFri, February 27, 2026 at 2:30 PM UTC

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Spoiler alert! We’re discussing the ending of the concert film “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert” (in theaters now). Come back later if you haven’t seen it yet.

Elvis Presley begat a slew of admiring rock ‘n’ roll legends, from Bob Dylan to David Bowie. But only one of them felt moved to memorialize the King in an elegiac poem.

In the final moments of “EPiC,” Baz Luhrmann’s visual spectacle built around Elvis’ culture-shaking ‘70s residency at the Las Vegas International Hotel, Bono rap-reads a condensed and slightly tweaked version of his poem “American David,” written more than 20 years ago.

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"EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert" captures a snapshot of a music legend in his prime and makes him as vital as he ever was.

“Elvis white trash, Elvis the Memphis flash,” he begins the 48-second snippet. “Elvis, he didn’t hear the shot, but Dr. King died just across the lot.”

The U2 frontman goes on to describe the contradictions of the King (“Shooting TVs, reading Corinthians 13”) before astutely summing up the cost of fame and success: “Elvis ate America before America ate him.”

The brief performance is included in the documentary’s soundtrack.

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“Bono’s influence from Elvis is so great, Bruce Springsteen the same,” Luhrmann tells USA TODAY. “We thought, well, it’s just a nice way of trying to make this not conclusive or prescriptive. This show’s not linear. It’s about Elvis in his own spontaneous way, I hope, letting you into his heart and his story.”

An earlier, longer version of the 1995 poem, which drew criticism for including a racial slur and an offensive slang term for cerebral palsy, appeared in Q magazine and had a public airing in a 2009 broadcast on BBC Radio 4. (Neither reference is heard in "EPiC.")

A poem about Elvis written by U2 singer Bono (seen here at Cannes Film Festival in 2025) ends "EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert."

So how did Luhrmann get Bono involved?

“He’s a good friend of mine, and I was in the south of France, in Cap-Ferrat (near Bono's home), so I texted him,” the director says. “I was telling him how I was about to start making this. And he was like ‘You know, I’ve written a poem about Elvis.’ So he went and got it and read it.”

As they finished the documentary, “we were like, well, how do we end it?” Luhrmann says. Film editor Jonathan Redmond, who had worked with U2 previously, “spontaneously put it in and we thought, yes, a poem.”

Bono previously paid tribute to Elvis in a 2004 essay he wrote for Rolling Stone’s Immortals issue, in which he described Presley as “the blueprint for rock ‘n’ roll.”

“This was punk rock. This was revolt,” Bono wrote. “Elvis changed everything − musically, sexually, politically. … Interestingly, the more he fell to Earth, the more godlike he became to his fans.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ‘EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert’ ends with surprise Bono tribute

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