Friday, December 9, 2016

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

From The Plain Dealer Action Tab, July 26, 1974.

I don't remember a whole lot about this show, not even sure where the tickets came from. We had Brel in the State at the time, rehearsals for Alice! hadn't started yet, and there was nothing going on at the Allen. I do remember Todd Reeves and I had to work until 5 or 6, then we could leave early to go to the show. Todd's friends Bonnie and Heather had staked out seats behind the first base dugout. I don't know who else was there, but there was a group of us. We got there late, sometime during the Climax Blues Band's set, missed the James Gang totally. I think ELP opened with Karn Evil 9, Lucky Man was played at some point, and Pictures at an Exhibition, in its entirety, was played as an encore. At some point Emerson was playing the piano that spun end over end, it was quite a spectacular show. It needed to be, since it was in a huge stadium with around 80,000 attendees.

I had their first three long players and played them to death back then. They did make some good records, but the later ones became a bit too pretentious for me.

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