Emerson, Lake and Nobody

[Hyfi]

Well it finally came. The long awaited and then rescheduled Emerson and Lake show at the Keswick. This poor tour has been plagued since the opening of the tour where people sat in their seats for an hour before being notified the show was canceled. The first 3 shows were then canceled with no real explanation but turned out to be illness. Halfway through the tour, a few more shows were canceled. My show was one of the original 3 and was rescheduled to last night.

This was an intimate evening with some story telling and a short Q&A from the audience. The sound was perfect, as usually not the case with most concerts.

Kieth has had several hand surgeries so his right hand was not what it used to be. Didn't matter that much as he is still the king of keys. He played about 5 different keyboards including the signature Moog Synthesizer that made Luck Man so cool.

Greg, who is about 3 of who he used to be sat on a stool and played bass or acoustic guitar and sang as beautifully as ever. He has more passion and feeling in his vocals than most of todays singers combined.

Set list was very close if not exact to this stolen post from PE
"From The Beginning
I Talk To The Wind
Take A Pebble
Tarkus (excellent BTW)

they took a break here

Keith tells a story about the spinning piano and fireworks
Cest La Vie
*****es Crystal
America (a little bit,no vocals)/Rondo

Here they took some questions from the audience.

Pirates

Then Greg tells the story about how the song Lucky Man came to be....
Lucky Man"

Below is my post from PE.

Robin Slick said:
The show last night was beautiful on so many levels

I have to agree. I got more than I bargained for and thoroughly enjoyed the whole show. The one lame question was about Philly being the greatest. Duh, we were in Glenside! The rest were good and answered well by both performers.....they ignored all the "Where is Carl" hollers.

I had the best sound location as the last row is the sweet spot of the Keswick. The sound level was one of the most perfect concert volume I have seen in a long time. You could decipher every note and understand with clarity every word Greg sang. Unlike John Sebastion who I saw a year ago, Greg can still sing with almost his normal range and he still sings with the passion and feeling most vocalists try to buy with singing lessons. It has to come from the heart and with Greg, it does.

Kieth did favor the last two fingers on his right hand as they dropped into a protective position every chance they got. But, his left hand still lays down a groove that's hard to beat. The Moog was awesome as well as the stunt he does in reaching over the keyboard from the wrong side and playing the thing backwards without a mistake.

There were two distractions for me though, one was the loudmouth drunk sitting next to us who needed to constantly draw attention to himself by shouting out as loud as he could every chance he got. The second was the guy in the so called recording booth. What was that all about? At first I thought Kieth was "key syncing" but after staring through my binocs the whole show realized the guy was not playing a piano back there but I'm sure it drew attention from anyone that could see through the glass.

Kieth is still the King of Keys!

The show was worth the wait and I'm glad I went. I think '79 at the Tower was the last time for me.

Oh and by the way, Robin Slick is the mother of Eric and Julie who round out Adrian Belew's Power Trio.

[MasterCylinder]

Hyfi :
It may be a waste of time to ask, given the problems you describe............is there a schedule of any remaining concert locations for this show ?
One of my biggest regrets from my concert-going days was never seeing Keith Emerson.

[Hyfi]

Hyfi :
It may be a waste of time to ask, given the problems you describe............is there a schedule of any remaining concert locations for this show ?
One of my biggest regrets from my concert-going days was never seeing Keith Emerson.

http://www.keithemerson.com/TourInfo...our-dates.html

Not many left and probably all sold out.

[Mr MidFi]

The first concert I ever went to was ELP with a full orchestra at Madison Square Garden... on 7/7/77. I was 14. And I was blown away.

[ForeverAutumn]

I've seen Lake and I've seen Palmer, but I've never seen Emerson. And I've never seen them together.

I saw Greg Lake perform with Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band in 2001. And I saw Carl Palmer with the Carl Palmer Band about three years ago.

[BarryL]

I don't think I ever missed ELP when they played in Toronto, from the first time I saw them at Maple Leaf Garden's on the Pirates tour, to headliners at the old CNE stadium, to a more intimate engagements at Massey Hall.

Yes, a lot of their later music wasn't very good, but they defined progressive rock from 1970 to 1974.

I'd have loved to see the intimate Emerson/Lake show. Maybe they'll make their way to Toronto yet.

Supposedly this is the prelude to an ELP reunion tour. I'm not sure there's any point to that. Except, when I saw Carl Palmer's band a few years back, he was intimating that he'd be interested in creating one more great - meaning progressive - ELP album. And with the recent Emerson Band CD being fairly progressive, maybe they have one more great progressive album left for the world.

So, maybe I do live in the past.

[richmon]

Surely Keith is nearing the end of his performing days, from the cancelled tour last year with Marc Bonilla, through the problems with this years tour with Greg.
Hopefully the ELP reunion tour will happen, wouldn't miss it.

I think Rick Wakeman has the most sense about father time, he won't tour anymore, but put on a grand spectacle of a concert (six wives hampton court) and filmed the whole shebang for DVD sales, which is excellent btw.

HyFi - check your 'private messages' I sent you somthing a while back.

[poppachubby]

I used to hang in the same circle as Carl Palmer's youngest daughter, Erin. She works at Steve's Music in Toronto. Never met her old man but none of us really cared either. I respect all that ELP has done, but that's about it.

[Swish]

...never, ever consider seeing them again. Seriously. I was either 14 or 15 when I saw them the first time with Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show as the opener (how weird was that), and we had some fun. The second time was a couple years later during their 'Quadraphonic Sound' tour, and it was freaking crazy to hear the sound flying around the arena.

I actually liked them back in the day, but they haven't been relevant for many years, so I have no desire to see them again.