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Emerson, Lake and PalmerEmerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake and Palmer with Orchestra
Emerson, Lake and Palmer with Bonham As a keyboardist, I've always been a fan of Keith Emerson. They are easily my favorite band to listen to. There used to be an argument about who was better, Emerson or Rick Wakeman from Yes. Personally, I don't think they are comparable. Wakeman is not the type to throw a Hammond around (which has resulted in a flaming Hammond more than once), he's more low-key. Wakeman plays a lot of beautiful stuff, but it's from a completely different line of thought and influences. Emerson plays much more aggressively most of the time, hammering out parts that mere mortals such as I just can't touch. Plus, he's got the coolest Moog synthesizer that Bob Moog ever built. It also seems like he was one of the (if not the) first to figure out that overdriving a Hammond made it sound better in a rock and roll way than the way they sound when the organist at a church plays them. ELP's first performance set the stage on fire and it's always a possibility when they play, even today, but I've never seen it happen. Saw the spinning piano in 1974, though, which was pretty damn impressive, but not half as amazing as Karn Evil 9 in surround sound. Palmer's precision, Emerson's awesome keys and Greg Lake's voice (as well as bass playing) left nothing for a musician in the audience to thumb their nose at. These guys were fricking awesome. At least for me. I've found that music like ELP and Kansas seem to have too many notes for some people. Those people probably don't like some orchestral music, either, for the same reason. So I'm betting that they are the ones that left good seats open for myself and friends in 1977, when ELP rolled into Des Moines with a 50-piece (maybe larger) orchestra. They would cut this idea short after about 10 shows, because it was costing them a fortune, so I consider myself lucky to have seen one of them. Most of the Emerson-generated material seems to come from music written for orchestras in the first place, but rocked up -- "Hoedown," "America," from West Side Story, Rimsky-Corsikov(sp?) in Pictures at an Exhibition, Tchiakovsky and more. So putting the orchestra back in made Emerson's job a little easier -- the soprano sax played the lead in "From the Beginning" -- but it served to give all the songs a lush background beyond the amazing amount that ELP could generate itself. The slower material, like "Lucky Man," really reaped the most benefit from a real string section; the brass made things like "Tarkus" even more dynamic, more layered. It was 15 years before I got to see them again, this time at a Phoenix area outdoor venue. Bonham was the opening act, Jason Bonham's band. The band consisted of a bass player who also did keys, a screaming lead guitarist and a skinny blond haired male singer who sounded kinda like Robert Plant. Sound familiar? Like Led Zeppelin 2.0 or something? Overall the band was okay, but I couldn't stop seeing it as a clone attempt. The redeeming factor was Jason Bonham, who sounded eerily like his dad. He was the main reason the band had a Led Zep feel to it at all. I should have liked them. I didn't and I don't know why. ELP had just released Black Moon, which I thought was an interesting album and most of which they performed, although the show started out with most of Tarkus. Emerson always inspires me and watching him play live always amazed me because I couldn't figure out how he could have all those sounds handy, especially since I couldn't see him ever hitting switches or calling up a new program. I must not have known about MIDI yet. When the encore started, at my wife's urging, I joined the "rush the stage" crowd. To this day I am still surprised that I did it. I had already done sound in so many concerts and outdoor shows, and done too many interviews with "stars," as well as a few casual encounters. I was far too cool to run up to the stage like a teenager. I don't fawn over stars, beg them for autographs, or even act like they're particularly special. Except this once. The encore was, of course, "Rondo," where Emerson kicks the shit out of a Hammond running through a Marshall, stabs it, plays it upside down while underneath it, kicks the Marshall around, kicks the Hammond around some more and makes as much noise with the two as possible. It was intense watching him do the upside down, playing backwards part from 3 feet away. Then there was the touching of hands, where I could possibly gain a little bit of Emerson magic by osmosis or electrocosmoidplasmic transfer or something, if he would merely give me a high five. There I was, against all my principles, reaching out, hoping Mr. Rock Star would touch my hand and give me some damn mojo. Missed it by that much. |
ELP Offical Site
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