Friday, December 24, 2010

ELP - 1971-08-12 - Toronto, Ontario

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1 comment:

Dr. Forrester said...

Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Keith Emerson- keyboards (lots of them)
Greg Lake- bass and vocals
Carl Palmer- drums and percussion
Stanley Park Stadium
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
August 12, 1971
performance quality: close to an A, classic ELP
recording quality: C/B (not too bad for this era,
but there is some keyboard overload in parts of the mix.)
source: audience tape (unknown low generation, probably either 1st or 2nd)
runtime: 72:08
setlist:
1: the barbarian (cuts in) 4:42
2: take a pebble > piano medley 15:05
3: tarkus 24:56
4: knife edge 7:00
5: rondo (with drum solo) 20:23
comments:
Sometime around this time I made my life's largest single album purchase
at one time. Ten albums, one was Brave New World by Steve Miller
another was Recall the Beginning a Journey from Eden by Steve Miller
(lotsa luck finding that one now, mine is gone), one was Ten Years After
a space in time, and one was the E.L.P. eagle cover debut album
which to this day is my favorite work I've ever heard by a keyboard/bass/drum
trio. There aren't lot of those (PFM is also quite good) and I have
always tried to find any decent recordings of ELP, especially this tour,
Pictures at an Exhibition, and Brain Salad Surgery. (from what I've heard, there
was no tour for "trilogy" (unfortunately!) and even that song has very rarely
been played live. It took until 1974 for the eagle to fly with Traffic
(another great tour) but it flew right away for ELP, just as it did for
Greg Lake's previous effort (King Crimson). It's about time for the dime to
hear some more from this tour, and I got tired of waiting for the
ELP Messiah. (I'm Jewish, so I know the messiah is not coming.
Not even the ELP in Concert messiah.)
this is the era of ELP I like best. Tarkus was the "new album"
and the eagle one was the featured one in this, the 1st ELP tour of
North America. The 1st stop in Boston was around this same time,
outdoors on the Esplanade along the shore of the Charles River,
but I've never heard a recording of that.
(If anyone has a recording of that please post it)
The second would come toward the end of the year, and was posted by shopkin
in a pretty good quality.. This is an up close recording, maybe a little too
close to a speaker, but most of it sounds pretty pleasant and it is a
young fresh fellows ELP show, Greg's voice sounds very inspired.
the recent shopkin post of ELP in Prov. 74 prompted me to dig this out,
and also because it is the season for outdoor shows.
this comes from the same fellow who provided Jeff Beck from Boston in 1971,
may have been recorded with the same deck and mikes as that was. The
deck was shut off at the ends of all the songs just moments after ending, so
I have spliced it up the best I could with very little to work with, to make
it less abrupt from song to song. It's pretty close to complete, not much missing
from any of the songs. It does have a few flaws but nothing too drastic or
lasting, the worst thing is some of the loudest keyboard parts overwhelm
everything else in the recording, but there's no clipping, and no saturation in
my copy. It sounds a little like there is because of the heavy lower-midrange
frequencies (which tend to often be the most bothersome for auds, not just in
this concert, but especially with ELP auds because of the synthesizer.)

December 24, 2010 at 9:03 PM

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