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Rating: It is in the live experience that emotions are gathered and handed down to posterity, it is the contact with the people that glorifies or demolishes. It is in the live setting that a band shows what it truly is. The crowd is the emperor's thumb.
The three gladiators are in the arena: Keith Emerson caresses the keys and abuses the keyboards, in a sonic ecstasy rooted in classical origins and imaginative developments; Carl Palmer beats, extracting the very soul from his drums, a counterpoint to the flights of fancy of the keyboards; Greg Lake bellows texts sometimes sensible, often bizarre, trying to curb his two explosive colleagues with his almost reassuring bass. Together, the most classic formation of progressive rock.
Yes concerts were perfect, redundant like their music; Genesis live shows were theatrical, histrionic like their leader; Pink Floyd's performances were (and would become even more) total spectacles, unique experiences of a time gone by. Emerson, Lake & Palmer concerts were simply overwhelming: perhaps rough, perhaps approximate, but overwhelming.
Such had to be their testimony, inevitably. And so a bold act was chosen. Three LPs to hand down to history are many, damn; but perhaps not, perhaps they were inevitable... Three LPs launched the three into the charts around the world once again.
"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends", said Lake in the immense "Karn Evil 9". And this endless show finally saw the light, in August 1974, after months of triumphant concerts: the 350,000 souls in California shared with Deep Purple, and then the oceanic crowds of Wembley.
It didn't change music, it didn't revolutionize anything; and it didn't change my life either. Yet it is unique. Vast, grandiose, even exaggerated.
The setlist is almost improvised, the grooves are filled to the brink, expanding the impossible and breaking what can be broken... And if the first record presents a canonical first side with three tracks (a beautiful "Hoedown" from the album "Trilogy" and then, from "Brain Salad Surgery", the wonderful "Jerusalem" and the keyboard apotheosis of the "Toccata", supported by a frenzied drum), on the second side "Tarkus" doesn't fit. Or rather, they don't want it to fit: so they interrupt it (a detrimental action for a suite, truly): "Confusion will be my Epitaph", admits Lake. In the end, the tribute to King Crimson is a tribute to oneself. And it's the confusion that makes this colossus immortal.
The third side - which is actually another record even - completes what needed to be completed, in an outburst of Emerson that culminates in the renowned Palmer's charge for a suite that was already history. Then, finally, it's the turn of good old Lake. And so "Take A Pebble" is a medley of his gentleness: "Still... you turn me on" (from "Brain Salad Surgery", with an almost sweet Emerson on the piano), and then "Lucky Man", from their debut album, where the singer once again soars with his acoustic guitar. There is also space for a conclusion (very Emerson-Palmerian, indeed), interspersed with a small improv by Emerson... 12 minutes remained free, after all, they had to be filled: worth noting is Palmer's jazz drumming, really such a great drummer. The second LP closes with a second medley, "Jeremy Bender/The Sherif" (from "Tarkus" and "Trilogy", respectively, showcasing once again the extravagant keyboardist, here on the organ).
One LP is missing. Might as well go overboard. "Karn Evil 9", first impression. And then the second and the third. That's enough to fill it. Emerson still a tyrant in his ivory tower, Palmer magnificently overwhelming, Lake aggressive and compelling. The marvelous suite of "Brain Salad Surgery" loses in perfection compared to the studio version, but it becomes the emblem of the delirium of a band never truly considered for what it is: if it's true that Emerson, Lake, and Palmer are verbose, exaggerated, monumental, it's also true that the genre taken to the extreme embodies this way they have of interpreting music. And these three standard-bearers are therefore one of the most wonderful expressions of that world that offered five unparalleled years in the history of music.
Ladies and Gentlemen, SEE THE SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!!
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