Brian's Progressive Rock Music Blog

Well done to Carla Huntington of New Ears Blog (New Englands ear on progresive rock) for getting an interview with Greg Lake. It is great to get some good information as the long suffering ELP fans rarely get much substance on any of the bands websites.

What was brilliant was that Greg mentioned that he and Keith are writing together again. It sounds so bizarre because from all the comments we see and hear you would think the two are arch enemies and sometimes wonder why they ever worked together at all. But as he says in the interview it is like a marriage.

Two good ELP news stories in one week – gasp. We are all in shock. ‘am or cheese!

It’s official! The announcement we though we’d never hear. ELP have finally committed to doing a gig in July 2010. They have agreed to headline the UK based High Voltage Festival. I don’t know much about the festival but it has to be worth the trip to see the band perform live again.

The official announcement on ELP’s own site and Tony Ortiz’s site promises that we can expect ‘canons, pyrotechnics and a supreme production alongside the stunning musicianship and songs that made ELP the legends they truly are’.

Hopefully we can get to hear some songs which we dont often hear live such as Trilogy, Karn Evil 9, Pirates, Canario (c’mon even Carl’s band plays it on guitar!), Living Sin (c’mon Marc Bonilla carried it off)

It’s great to see Steve Hackett back in Glasgow. I lost track of his career a wee bit but the last time I saw him in Glasgow was 1980-1981 in the Glasgow Apollo on the Spectral Mornings tour. It was an awesome gig as I remember.

Highlights I recall were starting with a thundering version of Please Don’t Touch with a single spot lighting him from floor level behind. Other memories were his brother playing flute, Nik Magnus on keyboards (i think) and great versions of Tigermoth and Spectral Mornings.

Still being in school at the time and only having been to a few gigs I was totally blown away by theses gigs so it is smashing to see him back in town. Very excited about this gig although the down side is that I am missing Yes’s  only Scottish date at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.

Despite all the crap that Pallas have had to endure during their career they showed they they are still the best progressive rock band of the post 70’s prog bands on Friday night (the so-called New Wave of British Progressive Rock)  when they played the Ferry in Glasgow (the first time for them at this venue as far as I know) and played a very good show.

They had a few minor technical issues with Ronnie Browns keyboards but that prompted a wee bit of chat-chat between band and audience – perhaps the kind of chit-chat you can only get with a Scottish audience. No big deal though – that’s live performance for you. If you want perfection stay at home and listed to the CD.

In a fairly ‘typical’ modern Pallas set highlights for me were :

The Cross and the Crucible with the aggressive thundering Rickenbacker bass of Graeme Murray coupled with Ronnie Brown’s big choir pads and voice samples.  See a video of the Cross and the Crucible on filestube.com

Midas Touch – another thumping bass ostinato, a good catchy one line chorus and awesome guitar work from Niall.

Cut and Run – the classic Sentinel track complete with Euan on vocals

New Tracks – They premiered some demo tracks for the ‘imminent’ (in Pallas’ timescale!) new album. The new tracks showed a much more aggressive almost Metallica/metal type of feel but still with some melody and arrangements – which is exactly the thing Pallas are great at.

They were perhaps a little under rehearsed (their words,not mine) but it was still a great gig as always. Pallas have been together for eons and are very adept at performing so it is never going to be bad gig (except by their standards). They are band that always deliver in live performance. They don’t perform that much but they do prove that quality us better than quantity in the world of rock music.

As has become somewhat customary, Euan Lowson did appear for a bit of nostaligia with  renditions of Cut and Run and Arrive Alive. If you think Euan is unpredictable in normal circumstances try watching him performing when he has had a few drinks! Cavorting around on stage like a madman he lifted Alan Reed upside down behind his back over his shoulders – sort of thing, and continued to sing.

It was a good end to another rare Pallas performance. Great music, great musician ship, great performance and a bit of light hearted entertainment.  Pallas have it all, so lets have some more, lads

Who said prog rock doesn’t have a sense of humour?

I was greatly saddened to learn of the recent death of Guy Babylon. I had only just started to talk about how influential Babylon Bleu was to me as a writer and keyboard player. Sometimes it seems there is no justice.

I guess it is somewhat fitting that he did leave us with one last example of his brilliance – with video too.

Here is the video of a Guy Babylon composition Las Vegas Twister  which once again he displays his mastery on all instruments. Yet again he plays some excellent synth guitar via his clavinet with the Castlebar tremolo arm. The world of music needs more of this kind of genius.

Las Vegas Twister from Guy Babylon on Vimeo.

Some neat photos are published on the ELP Pool at Flickr.

Personal Highlights
The Oval 1972 – Photos from the gig ELP played at Londons Oval (the cricket ground) with the real cardboard Tarkus ! photos from David Buckley

Maple Leaf Gardens in 1978 – nice shots of Keith and Greg – from jlacpo

The Atlas Fireworks Show opened with a shortened version of Karn Evil 9. After the voice introduction to the show Karn Evil kicks in. It has a brief edit to the ‘See the Show’ end sequence to launch the fireworks show.

After that it goes straight into the original version of Carl Orffs Carmina Burana which ELP fans will recognise from the last lot of Keith Emerson tours.

Atlas Fireworks Show

ELP’s keyboard version of Canario is a brilliant adaptation of Rodrigo’ piece and is a classic ELP instrumental without question. Carl Palmers guitar arrangement (being the only version to appear live from any of ELP) captures all the energy that ELP caught in the studio.

What a shame (another one alas) that ELP never performed this track live – it really rocks. Sure the original is great too with classical guitar and orchestra, but the Emerson Lake and Palmer arrangement is awesome with all the new colour /sound palette which Emerson had available at that time including the Yamaha GX-1 and the Korg PS 3300.

Another positive vote for Love Beach.

Imminent Release of Working Live Vol 3
Carl has also announced the imminent release of  another live album called …wait for it…..Working Live Vol 3 which is to feature  amongst other things his ‘guitar’ version of Bitches Crystal from Tarkus which was performed on the last ELP Tour and Keith Emerson Tour.

It should be another interesting album with guitar versions of the ELP classics. Most of the previous guitar arrangement of classic tracks for were Trilogy (from Trilogy) and Canario (from Love Beach).

For me Love Beach has a lot of good moments. Despite the poor concept and packaging etc a lot of the songs are actually very good. OK they are not all Emerson, Lake and Palmer classics but Taste of my Love and The Gambler are good ‘pop’ songs but of course a lot of ELP fans can’t handle this kind of stuff. (I’ll do more ranting about/defending of Love Beach another time).

If only Carl could get a decent website!

The official Greg Lake website has a holding page announcing that the new website will launched ………er……..soon.

In the meantime you can at least get a few scraps of  information at his My Space website .