Tony Ortiz - Official Archivist at Emerson Lake & Palmer
https://www.facebook.com/tony.ortiz.94064
Yikes -- that wins the "Rare Video of the Week" (maybe even month and year) award!
I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.
And a tron no less! I smell a bit of shenanigans near the end though. There's a part happening that Kieth isn't playing and Greg couldn't play. I think they were playing to a backing tape (hence, extra drums in the intro) and Greg may or may not have been miming. I think that's why they just dropped the song.
Yes they were playing to a backing tape
Tony Ortiz - Official Archivist at Emerson Lake & Palmer
https://www.facebook.com/tony.ortiz.94064
Where the hell did that come from?? Is there a full show?
Yeah, that song has way too many tracks and it was coming across way too close to the album for it to be just two guys playing it. I was trying to see if maybe they had the backing tracks loaded in pieces onto the Mellotron and that was what Greg was playing, but that's probably not it. If anything maybe they had the basic chord progressions from the album version recorded onto the 'tron tapes...
Anyways, that's a slice of ELP trivia heaven. Greg Lake playing a fucking Mellotron...
From the comments:
unfortunately not. Swiss TV wanted to film whole concert, but were not allowed to...
I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.
It's nice to actually see/hear this.
But, I'm befuddled by the surprised reactions. It has long been known that they performed this multiple ways and that Lake played Mellotron and Moog.
From PA:
http://www.progarchives.com/forum/fo...TID=90779&PN=2
Emerson:
"After we recorded Trilogy (1972), we wanted to perform the album on stage, but Abaddon's Bolero was a hugely complex track with loads of Moog synthesizer overdubs and it was quite impossible to play it live. So we sampled complete phrases off the 16-track onto a Mellotron, which Greg could play using bass pedals. This still wasn't enough, so we also hooked up a Revox tape recorder and arranged the track around that. Unfortunately, the second time we tried it in front of an audience, the Revox ground to a halt and so did Carl, Greg and myself. We ended up having a huge argument backstage, the result of which was that we never attempted the Bolero again. I would have trashed the Mellotron, but I gave it to Greg instead. I've no idea where it is now."
--
"Carl wore an earphone, and played the drum in synch with a click on the backing tape. Greg played the prerecorded chords on the Mellotron. The trouble arose after playing "Abaddon's Bolero" about 4 times live - the tape went bad and the sound stopped going to Carl's earphone. Carl continued to play without his earphone, but at the climax, the sound from the backing tape was lost, and then it was only the three of us playing. We decided to stop using it after that. It was too risky and also Carl did not like playing to a backing tape. This happened in Germany in 1973."
--
In April of '72 at the Philadelphia Spectrum, on the tour just before Trilogy was released, they did it (under the original title) with just a backing tape.
Tony Ortiz - Official Archivist at Emerson Lake & Palmer
https://www.facebook.com/tony.ortiz.94064
Greg/ELP borrowed the Mellotron from King Crimson.
Tony Ortiz - Official Archivist at Emerson Lake & Palmer
https://www.facebook.com/tony.ortiz.94064
Great clip! Too bad the whole show isn't there.
Thanks for the photos A. Scherze, the one with the Tarkus tank is especially cool, I thought that was only used on the Trilogy tour in 1972.
I was talking to a buddy today and he asked me "If you could go back in time to three eras, what would they be?". Me: "Number 1: I'd time-travel to November 1973 and follow ELP around on the Brain Salad Surgery tour until August 1974 and catch all the other great bands touring then like King Crimson too". I could have caught King Crimson's Asbury Park > Providence > Central Park run too, as ELP was on a break.
...or you could love
It seems that they tried it at least a few times in early '72 on the first US leg of the Trilogy tour (pre-release).
But, then they attempted it again a year later ('72) on the "Get Me A Ladder Tour".
So, it looks like really wanted to play this live and put some effort into making this happen, especially Lake on additional keys.
However, I'm skeptical of the "tape failure" story. All they needed was a sturdy 2-track to play for 8 minutes. It seems unlikely to fail.
And, then decide to replace a Revox with that well-known, failure-free workhorse, the Mellotron.
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