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Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends... Ladies and Gentlemen

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Manticore Records
Released: 1974.08.19
Time:
 35:52 / 32:54
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Greg Lake, Jeff Palo
Rating:
Media type: CD double
Web address: www.emersonlakepalmer.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2015
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


Disc One

[1] Hoedown (A.Copland) - 4:27
[2] Jerusalem (Ch.H.Hastings Parry/William Blake) - 3:20
[3] Toccata an adaptation of Ginastera's 1st piano Concerto, 4th movement (A.Ginastera) - 7:21
[4] Tarkus (K.Emerson/G.Lake) - 27:24
      1. Eruption (K.Emerson)
      2. Stones of Years (K.Emerson/G.Lake)
      3. Iconoclast (K.Emerson)
      4. Mass (K.Emerson/G.Lake)
      5. Manticore (K.Emerson)
      6. Battlefield [Lake] (R.Fripp/I.McDonald/G.Lake/M.Giles/P.Sinfield)
      7. Aquatarkus (K.Emerson)
[5] Take a Pebble (G.Lake) - 11:06


Disc Two

[1] Piano Improvisations (K.Emerson) - 11:54
[2] Take a Pebble [Conclusion] (G.Lake) - 3:14
[3] Jeremy Bender / The Sheriff (K.Emerson/G.Lake) - 5:26
[4] Karn Evil 9 (Emerson/G.Lake, Sinfield) - 35:21
      1. Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression (K.Emerson/G.Lake)
      2. Karn Evil 9: 2nd Impression (K.Emerson)
      3. Karn Evil 9: 3rd Impression (K.Emerson/G.Lake/P.Sinfield)

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Keith Emerson - Keyboards, Arrangements
Greg Lake - Bass, Guitars, Vocals, Arrangements, Producer
Carl Palmer - Drums, Percussion, Arrangements

Jeff Palo - Producer
Derek Dressler - Reissue Producer
Peter Granet - Engineer
Andy Hendriksen - Engineer
Andy Pearce - Remastering
Emily Johnson - Artwork, Package Supervision
Michael Ross - Original Design Concept
Michael Ross - Design, Package Concept
Art Slave - Package Design
Sarah Southin - Reissue Design
Carl Dunn - Original Photography
Marc Eisenoff - Photography
Kate DeVriend - Editorial Supervision
Antony Amos - Project Coordinator
Steve Hammonds - Project Coordinator
Martyn Hanson - Liner Notes
Steve Hochman - Liner Notes
Bruce Pilato - Liner Notes, Sleeve Notes
Stewart Young - Management

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1974 LP Manticore-MC-3-200
1974 LP Atlantic Records
2007 CD Shout Factory 826663-10539
2009 CD Leadclass LC06448

Recorded live at the Anaheim Convention Centre in California in February 1974 on Emerson, Lake & Palmer 1973/74 World Tour.



Upon its release, the 1973 LP Brain Salad Surgery had been hailed as Emerson, Lake & Palmer's masterpiece. A long tour ensued that left the trio flushed and begging for time off. Before disbanding for three years, they assembled a three-LP live set (something of a badge of achievement at the time, earned by Yes in 1973 with Yessongs and, somewhat more dubiously, Leon Russell with Leon Live). Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends gives a very accurate representation of ELP's shows at the time, including their uncertain sound quality. It isn't that the group didn't try hard to give a good show; they did, but left to just his two hands, without the use of multi-tracking and overdubs to build layer-upon-layer of electronic keyboard sounds, Keith Emerson was at a singular disadvantage on some of the boldest material in the trio's repertory. And even allowing how far the art and science of recording rock concerts had advanced in the 1970s, there were still inherent problems in recording a fully exposed bass - Greg Lake's primary instrument - in an arena setting that couldn't be overcome here. Even the most recent remastered editions could not fix the feedback, the occasionally leakages, the echo, the seeming distance - the listener often gets the impression of being seated in the upper mezzanine of an arena. That said, the group still had a lot of fire, enthusiasm, and cohesion at this point in its history, and that does come through. And if they don't solve every problem with the sound, the remastered editions from Rhino, Japanese WEA, and Sanctuary do give Lake's voice and Emerson's piano their richest, fullest possible tone and a fighting chance in these surroundings, and bring Carl Palmer's drumming much more up close and personal than it ever was on the LP. On the down side, the division into two CDs (as opposed to three LPs) means that the 26-minute "Take a Pebble"/"Piano Improvisations"/"Take a Pebble" chain - complete with Lake's excellent acoustic guitar spot for "Still You Turn Me On" and "Lucky Man" - is broken up between the two discs. The song selection - if not quite the career-ranging array of repertory that Yessongs was for Yes - is stellar and features all the material from Brain Salad Surgery (with the exception of "Benny the Bouncer"), including a complete 36-minute rendition of "Karn Evil 9," which filled both sides of the third LP in the original set. The latter is thoroughly bracing, with a level of visceral energy that was lacking in some moments of the original studio version, and is also almost as good a showcase for Lake, whose singing and playing here are better than they were on the studio original, as it is for Emerson and Palmer. Add to that a 27-minute "Tarkus" - complete with one Pete Sinfield-authored verse from King Crimson's "Epitaph" (which they'd been adding to the piece in concert at least since the Trilogy tour) - and you now have three quarters of the music. Hearing any of those three pieces (and the stunning "Toccata") performed live, obviously without any overdubs, makes one realize how accomplished these musicians were, and how well they worked together when the going was good. This was the group's last successful and satisfying tour, as subsequent journeys on the road, in association with the Works album, were mired in acrimony about expenses, repertory, ego clashes, and the decision about going out with an orchestra (or not), or were motivated purely by contractual and financial obligations, whereas here they proved that even their most ambitious ideas could work musically, done by just the three of them. The sometimes disappointing sound quality should not be too much of a turnoff for fans, but newcomers should definitely start with the studio albums, and make this the third or fourth ELP album in their collection. And it should be listened to loud.

François Couture - All Music Guide



Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends... Ladies and Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake & Palmer is a 1974 live album by progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. It was originally packaged as a three-disk vinyl set in a gatefold ("trifold" with two sections opening away from the center) cover, the inside of which used the letters "E", "L" and "P" as retainers for the individual disks. The album reached No. 4 on the Billboard album chart, making it ELP's highest charting album in the US.[1]

This was the last ELP release for almost three years while the band took an extended break to recover and pursue some solo projects that eventually ended up on their next release Works in 1977.

The album was recorded during the 1973/1974 Someone Get Me a Ladder world tour. The title of the album comes from the introduction to the performance, itself a paraphrase of the opening line of the song "Karn Evil 9: First Impression, Part 2". The "welcome back my friends" hook was also used by Alan Freeman on some of his radio shows.

The Quadraphonic mix of the album was only released in the Quadraphonic 8-track cartridge format, as a three-tape set. Despite the tape cartridge box art sharing the Quadradisc record logo, a planned CD-4 quad vinyl version of the 3 record set had to be scrapped, due to engineering issues with master tapes that prevented JVC from cutting a stable master to meet strict CD-4 format specifications.

Most of the original recordings included on the album had been first issued as a presentation for the syndicated US radio show "King Biscuit Flower Hour". In 1999, these original radio recordings were released on CD.

Allmusic gave the album a mixed retrospective review, saying that it "makes one realize how accomplished these musicians were, and how well they worked together when the going was good." They praised the set for including all but one song from Brain Salad Surgery, and particularly commended the performance of "Karn Evil 9" as being far superior to the studio rendition. However, they noted that unlike most live albums of the era, Welcome Back did not incorporate studio overdubs, limiting the band's ability to recreate moments from their albums and resulting in poor sound quality: "Even the most recent remastered editions could not fix the feedback, the occasionally leakages, the echo, the seeming distance – the listener often gets the impression of being seated in the upper mezzanine of an arena."

Wikipedia.org
 

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