music

as far as i can remember the only person who liked emerson lake and palmer at school was a bit of an arse, though it wasn’t his love of prog that made him a prize tit it was everything else about him. more than likely i decided to give elp a go for two simple reasons: firstly greg lake had been in king crimson and back in the days of buying long playing vinyl you read the covers and would follow musicians to other projects. greg lake had been in king crimson, and i loved king crimson. secondly elp had released ‘welcome back my friends to the show that never ends’ a triple (triple!) live album. how could they lose?
they were the prototypical supergroup with keith emerson coming from the nice, greg lake from king crimson and carl palmer leaving atomic rooster. together their mix of classical and rock saw them expand the boundaries and frontiers of progressive rock music. they were proggier than the rest.
yet for all the pomp and splendour there are some sounds that keith emerson gets out of his array of keyboards that would not be out of place on some modern industrial albums.
for a band who have been around for so long and have such a great reputation they have not recorded that many studio albums – and a few of those have been turkeys. the several classic albums they did have provided them with enough material to do many over the top stage shows.
i missed out on seeing them at their recent london outing. not too fussed though as i still have plenty of live bootlegs of them to listen to and enjoy. it is always a pleasure to listen to them again – as it reminds me of those far off days of school when we had those dreams of being something special.
i miss those dreams, but with emerson lake and palmer for awhile i can have them again.

this is one of their earliest gigs. check out how intimate it is, not much room left on that stage with all the keyboards and drums - poor old greg is off to the side almost on his own. what is it that keith emerson is wearing (odd clothes seem to be a staple of prog keyboard players as demonstrated by rick wakeman). another clue to this being proggy is the size of the drum kit, the extra chimes and gongs are a prequisite. what is noticeable is that all three look as happy as larry as they go through their paces. later on they wouldn't be quite so happy with each other as they broke up, got back together and then broke up. here though you can hear that they have a special chemistry that burnt brightly.





this is a wonderful song, even with the chitchat of the people who have recorded the video. it is a recent performance of, part of elp. the main reason for including it here is to counterpoint it against the first video. look at the space between keith and greg - there are two people who are not that keen on each other anymore. then contrast the size of the greg now to the greg then. that is what over 40 years of rock and roll can do to you.
he still has a fine set of pipes though.