The orchestra tour caused them no end of problems, sadly, and the ramifications were considerable. I think Palmer said on the Beyond The Beginning documentary that for all the effort it took, it only really worked occasionally, and I would agree with that, based on what has been released.
I'll definitely check out these other live albums recorded in the 70s at some point. Sometimes I find a live album so definitive it gets put on the backburner, and that's how I feel with Welcome Back...in terms of tracks chosen, you couldn't really ask for better (Trilogy songs aside, but then the longer material from that album was seldom played beyond that album's tour anyway). I agree with the Yessongs comparison; right album at the right time, capturing the band at something of a peak.
Pictures was my first love as that was my first taste of the group live. The Old Castle and Blues variations are still one of my favorite things they did. But WBMFTTSTNE will be my favorite because I was actually at the Anaheim Convention Center for one of those two shows this album was, in majority, taken from. That was a night that changed me in a lot of ways. I know all the technical issues with the sound on the album but I don't care because inside that arena it was unbelievable. i just wish the 17 year old me could have afforded tickets to both shows.
Mar Y Sol.
Caveat that I'm not the hugest fan of the band, but that's pretty much the only ELP album I ever play (other than the debut).
Buffalo 7/26/74 by about the distance from here to the Crab Nebula. Incredible Tarkus, great solo spots within Take a Pebble and what I think is their live peak, the mind-blowing Pictures at an Exhibition. Very good bootleg sound, it was released as part of Bootleg Series on Vol. 2.
...or you could love
Welcome back....
Because it was my first ELP album.
WBMF by a long distance.
I love Buffalo '74, but it's not really a live album just because it came out in a posthumous official bootleg set, IMO. Mar Y Sol is also good but I kind of see it in a similar way. And I wouldn't choose it over the triple live album anyway.
The thing about WB is that by this time they really had their live presentation under such amazing control. I enjoy the earlier shows but by '74 Keith was controlling his rig, and it didn't rear its head and control him the way it sometimes did in earlier shows.
Pictures At An Exhibition
Works I
I stand corrected. Well, if anything, though, it demonstrates the ability to make a version where the music isn't drowning in reverb. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but the "rear" speakers are a lot louder in the fold down than they really need to be, if you ask me.
BTW, I remember listening to the CD version of that album on headphones one day, and wondered if they hadn't remixed with one of those pseudo-surround sound deals like holophonics or Q Sound (or whatever they were called). I remember reading that Pink Floyd used holophonics on The Final Cut (supposedly, the missile at the beginning of Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert takes off in front of the listener, passes overhead then explodes behind you, as one example) and Waters used it again on Pros And Cons and used Q Sound on Amused To Death (I remember an interview where he said that with Q Sound you had to be precisely equidistant between the left and right speakers for it to work properly).
Anyway, so I'm listening to Welcome Back... and when the sample and hold thing during Karn Evil 9 First Impression kicks, it seemed like it was swirling around my head, as if it were being panned in a circle in a quad sound system. So I think I asked about this online, and someone explained that no the album hadn't been remixed, and the phenomenon I was describing was the result of the fact that the physical relation between your ears and the headphones is constantly changing, hence your "perspective" in relation to the sounds change. I guess. Anyway, I always thought it was amusing that was the one place where I noticed that happening.
Last edited by GuitarGeek; 04-08-2016 at 11:56 PM.
^There's some really gimmicky mixing going on during Palmer's drum solo on KE9. I don't know if that was an attempt to replicate the way he would spin around on stage but the mix hasn't aged that well for me, it's kind of topsy-turvy.
With Welcome Back..., I'd forgotten that parts of KE9 were downtuned considerably, but not all of it- as such, it's a little more fragmented than the studio one. It's still a magnificent achievement to have pulled off such music on stage night after night. Emerson's 'keyboard orchestra' sound, playing complex parts on the synths (including most of the bass lines) and organ simultaneously is particularly mindboggling!
Last edited by JJ88; 04-08-2016 at 06:48 AM.
Live at High Voltage Fest, because I've been there, and I remember, that Lake's voice sounded much brighter live, than on the record. Objectively, WBMF is the most strong live album, but I never liked mixing on WBMF, and the quality of record. Sometimes the band plays in a terrible rush. Too much of rave, in the 70s fashion..But maybe I just don't get the sense.
I'm not sure about "most" of the bass lines. I know during First Impression Part Two, Greg is playing guitar, so obviously there Keith is playing Minimoog synth. But I think most of the rest of the piece, it's Greg playing bass, isn't it?
And I think it's not so much a matter of sections of the piece being downtuned (which I understand to be an instance where the guitars are tuned below "concert pitch", ya know, like all those stupid metal bands who are trying desperately to make their music sound "evil"), so much as portions just being transposed down. The thing I remember hearing is that's it's not even the entire piece, so Keith actually had to re-learn certain sections in the lower key, but other sections were in the original. Presumably that was to accommodate Greg, who presumably didn't want to have to sing in the higher keys for those sections night after night. But it must have driven Keith mad to have to deal with relearning some of those parts.
OTOH, Emerson should have understood that he was writing for Lake's vocal range and should have taken that into consideration when composing.
I prefer hearing musicians pushed to their limits. If it doesn't always come off "perfectly" in a live setting, just hearing someone do his best and attempt it works for me. If Lake decided they needed to transpose some sections down to accommodate it in a live setting, that also works for me.
In this early 1973 show Greg is still singing Karn Evil 9 Ist Impression at the original pitch interestingly enough (listen from around 25mins)...but not surprising that it became too punishing for the later tour that year:
I get the impression that in general, Emerson didn't pay too much attention to Lake's concerns, vis-a-viz "writing for his voice". Consider Lake's complaint that often times Keith put forth stuff that didn't leave much room for vocal melodies (eg Eruption, for instance). That was apparently one of the sources of all the friction between them (well, one of the initial sources, anyway).
I remember Greg saying once that Keith was a talented keyboardist and composer, but not so good at actual songwriting, as a means of explaining what his role as producer on the early ELP albums (ie he had to edit Keith's "compositions" into something that could be more accurately described as "songs").
From Emerson's book:
John (Mayer) and I had rehearsed Lalo's 'Symphonie Espagnole, Fifth Movement', and we performed it, John on violin, myself on piano. I liked the piece so much that I worked on an arrangement for the band and, through Lee's lyricism, it became 'Diary of an Empty Day'. I hated transposing (emp. mine), so keeping it in its original key meant Lee had to strangle his testicles in an effort to reach the high notes.
Interesting indeed, never heard of Eduard Lalo, nor that he had been another source of inspiration for ELP. That speaks well for Lalo, an interesting composer for me to explore, since his music is described as full of strong melodies and colourful orchestration, just one of my favourite flavours
"Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth. ". Ludwig van Beethoven
Watched the Works Orchestral Tour again....I appreciate that Keith Emerson loved this show, and it's certainly polished in terms of execution, but it's just way too much bombast for me, not enough musical space, typical of 'orchestral rock'. There's some very iffy synth sounds on Pictures- one of them sounds like a 'buzzer' on a game show! Palmer's 'Tank' solo seemed to go on forever.
The one, indisputable shining moment of this show for me is 'Pirates', and of course that was left off In Concert and Works Live!
Love everything I've heard. I've even begun to appreciate those late 90's live albums which I wouldn't touch at one point.
Last edited by ytserush; 04-16-2016 at 04:13 PM.
RE; The Royal Albert Hall live album. It's solid, and largely before Emerson's increasingly debilitating hand problems; I suppose the playing is more concise than it had been in the 1970s, and closer to the studio versions. But that means that there's a lot less improvisation. Nevertheless, I think this was quite a good period for them and a strong relaunch...a shame that they never quite managed to capitalise on the considerable interest in these concerts.
Wish they'd played KE9 1st Impression Part 2 in full, rather than just over a minute. The version of 'Pirates' is very good, with the band pulling off all the complexity of the piece with aplomb. What we get of 'Tarkus' is also nice (save for that overlong ribbon controller bit and the pre-programmed keyboard parts beneath that do nothing for me either).
With the then-new material from Black Moon, the relatively concise nature of the material means that these versions barely differ from the studio originals (there are even pre-recorded backing vocals on 'Paper Blood'). As such, I wouldn't have even bothered including more than one of them on a live album that already does not contain a complete performance. At least we get a good version of 'Creole Dance'...and 'Close To Home' from one of these concerts is available on some of Emerson's solo releases.
I'm not keen on Palmer's drum sound...looking at the footage from these shows, it looks like he's playing acoustic drums yet they still have this horribly dead electronic sound.
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