Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Kingdom Festival
Il Villaggio della Musica
Bellinzona, Switzerland
July 25th 1997
Of all the prime 70s prog bands I think ELP were the strangest.
Their three-piece supergroup line-up was odd for one thing.
You are not listening to a band...it's three solo performances
and they seem actively in competition with each other.
Brain Salad Surgery is amazing.
Very sharp though. Like an ice pick to the forehead.
I've considered remastering it to be bass-heavy..just imagine!
I reworked this recording with ice picks in mind...it's what they would have wanted.
Keith was a genius. His ability to separate left and right hands astounds me.
But he was always drunk and throwing knives at keyboards/speaker-cabs/Greg.
The first two tracks here are a bit odd.
Mainly due to Keith's keyboard sounds/volumes.
After that it calms down a bit.
They vary from organised chaos to the sublime.
If I can only take one ELP album to the desert island I'm taking this one.
regards
Titus
Disc 1
01 Karn Evil 9 - 1st Impression - pt 2
02 Tiger in a Spotlight
03 Hoedown
04 Touch and Go
05 From the Beginning
06 Knife-Edge
07 Bitches Crystal
08 (Keith solo) Creole Dance
09 Honky Tonk Train Blues
10 Take a Pebble
Disc 2
01 Lucky Man
02 Tarkus/Pictures at an Exhibition
03 Fanfare for the Common Man/Rondo
04 21st Century Schizoid Man/America
I have to agree Brain Salad Surgery is amazing, but I stopped listening to ELP after hearing the very awful Love Beach album. So I've just given a couple of the tracks here a listen, and I like the sound of it. I had a live album I think called Live Works and it was a great performance but the bass guitar seemed to have been mixed way too quiet, I couldn't keep that one. I look forward to this, thanks Titus.
ReplyDeleteHa Ha, yes, just the front cover of Love Beach was enough to turn anyone's stomach. I never got into Works at the time. I'm more Pictures at an Exhibition really...although, as we agree, Brain Salad was their seminal work.
DeleteI only liked the 2 band songs on Works the rest is solo stuff. Pictures and Brain Salad Surgery were the first of their albums I bought, and both are still my favorites, I never saw ELP live but did see Carl Palmers Qango band with John Wetton on bass and vocals in 1999.
ReplyDeleteI never saw ELP. Seen Carl play 2 or 3 times. Hs band are really good. Guitar player does the Emerson bits...no keyboards!
DeleteThis has proved surprisingly popular. I saw it on a Russian site two days after I posted it here, I mean the nerve!...LOL
ReplyDeleteSounds great, but link's dead, unfortunately. Anyway you could re-up that one ? Mega or Mediafire would be perfect. Thankxxxx
ReplyDeleteHi Klaus, the link is refreshed
DeleteWell, that's what I call a quick answer ! Thanks !
ReplyDeleteWe aim to please...quite like your blogs BTW...not my subject but interesting
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