PRRP030 - ELP
WORKS ON THE ROAD
July 12, 1977 (Boston Garden-Boston, Mass.)
1.1 Intro/ Karn Evil 9-1st Impression Pt.2 4:59
1.2 Hoedown 4:06
1.3 Tarkus 18:07
1.4 Take A Pebble Pt.1 3:16
1.5 Piano Concerto #1 5:23
1.6 Take A Pebble Pt.2 2:28
1.7 Still...You Turn Me On 3:26
1.8 Knife-Edge 5:04
1.9 Pictures At An Exhibition (excerpts) 15:54
2.1 C'est la Vie 4:13
2.2 Lucky Man 3:09
2.3 Tank 11:19
2.4 Nutrocker 6:42
2.5 Pirates 13:01
2.6 Fanfare Fir The Common Man/Rondo 15:54
ELP
Keith Emerson - Keyboards
Greg Lake - Bass Guitars-Guitars and Vocals
Carl Palmer - Drums and Percussion
Fanfare For An Uncommon Band
1977 was a year of huge change for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, change that would, sadly, signal the beginning of the end for the celebrated trio. After the groundbreaking 1973 album ‘Brain Salad Surgery’, considered by many to be the band’s crowning achievement, the colossal world tour that followed, taking in 75 shows, left the band drained of all energy. They elected to take a well-deserved break and spend time with their families.
Eventually, the three musicians began working on solo projects which, coincidentally, all involved the use of orchestral arrangements. The band, it seemed, were about to embrace an entirely new musical direction, filled with new challenges and great expectations. But this new and so-called ‘orchestral crusade’ would also bring more than its fair share of problems for ELP.
Carl Palmer remembers: “Originally, what happened is we all went off and recorded the pieces of music we each wanted to do. And after about six months we got together and played through the individual stuff and suddenly it all clicked. Everybody had used an orchestra, had something with brass and strings and woodwinds.” At first, the project would see all three musicians releasing separate solo albums which would be followed by an album of band material but this idea was soon deemed to be an unwise move, as Palmer recalls: “We knew the problems about releasing individual albums. If you release them too close to each other, one takes the sales from the other.” Finally, band manager Stewart Young came up with the idea of packaging
the whole thing as a double album with each of the first three sides separately dedicated to each musician’s best solo music and the fourth side featuring brand new band-written ELP material.
The band adjourned to Montreux, Switzerland, and set about recording this vast amount of new material. The decision to record in Montreux was, in Keith Emerson’s words “…the worst we’ve ever made! It was like living in a padded coffin. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go to rave it up.
Being there made us feel so isolated!” Carl Palmer: “The thing that kept us going in Montreux was the quality of the studio.” Yet the band stuck to it and out of these difficult recording sessions came the album ‘Works’, the like of which had never been heard in popular music before or since. The album was presented in a lavish three-way gatefold, with one of the discs at each end. As a visual sign of the change in the musical approach, the entire artwork was designed in black and white, very distant in concept from the colourful layouts of earlier albums such as ‘Tarkus’, ‘Trilogy’ or ‘Brain Salad Surgery’.
The new album was released in March 1977 and, after the initial shock of hearing the band’s new orchestral approach, it soon gained rave reviews from the press and fans alike. Much to everyone’s surprise, the album was marked as ‘Volume One’, which evidently led the fans to believe that a second album of similar magnitude and power was waiting in the wings for release at a later date. As will be explained later, the fate of ‘Works – Volume Two’ would take quite a different turn.
The next step was to bring the new album to the stage. This would be the biggest challenge of all and would, in the end, precipitate the downfall of ELP. From the start, all three band members were convinced that the ambition inherent in ‘Works – Volume One’ was worth the risk. The album was proving to be a huge success worldwide but taking the mammoth show on the road, complete with orchestra and the necessary back-up crew – a touring party of over 160 people – ruined the band financially. Although they would later recuperate some of their losses, this was the first sign of ELP’s imminent disintegration. The band had spent part of the winter and spring of 1977 rehearsing their demanding set at the Olympic Velodrome in Montreal. By that point they had been away from the stage for nearly three years so they really needed a quiet rehearsal space, away from the mob of British reporters intent on following their every move. Rehearsals went well and the band regained much of its usual confidence but the upcoming live dates still worried them.
The tour started with an aura of good will but the enormous cost of keeping so many people on the road soon proved too much of a strain. For a tour of such magnitude to work financially, ELP would have had to perform to full houses at every venue, which was simply impossible to guarantee. Too many shows were scheduled in too little time for it to work. The orchestra had to go.
Keith Emerson recalls: “There were a lot of unforeseen things that made us jettison the orchestra. One was a ruling by the union that musicians can’t travel more than about 100 miles every day. But the thing is that people travel that far these days to see concerts. So we were packing places one night and then we’d travel 100 miles to the next place and we’d only have half the house filled. And a lot of other things started piling up to put us behind. From then on, it was impossible to catch up with the finances so we just had to stop and go out as a three-piece.” ELP’s reluctant decision to only use the orchestra in the very large venues also brought financial disaster. After two final appearances at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, the first of which was both recorded and filmed for posterity, the orchestra was dropped for good and the tour limped on without it.
Ultimately, only 14 concerts were performed with the orchestra. By the end of the tour, ELP were physically exhausted, approaching bankruptcy and completely disillusioned about the whole thing. Still they had to pick up the pieces and try to recoup some of the financial losses. It became apparent that only a full tour as a three-piece could help accomplish that.
As the fans had surmised, the original idea behind the ‘Works – Volume One’ album was that there would be a second volume of the same kind. The disastrous outcome of the orchestral tour had changed the band’s plans entirely. From then on, everything that ELP would do or release was done with only one goal in mind: to set the ELP ship afloat again. The band needed to pull themselves out of a very deep financial hole and taking extravagant risks would surely not do that. Hoping to bring in some fresh money to finance the much needed new tour, the band released the hastily assembled ‘Works – Volume Two’ album, a single LP that featured earlier singles, B-sides and rejects. The result, a very bland album unworthy of the band’s past
accomplishments and reputation, proved a dismal failure and a huge disappointment for ELP fans. The band was walking along a tightrope and nothing, it seemed, could prevent them from taking that last fatal step.
But no matter what has been said or written about the infamous ‘Works’ tour, and despite the huge amount of problems that surrounded it, Emerson, Lake and Palmer still very much enjoyed performing together and the extensive amount of official and unofficial recordings from that particular period stands as staggering evidence to that effect. ELP were at the peak of their performing skills and to see them perform live was to remember them forever.
From 16th January 16 until 13th March 1978, ELP once again toured North America as a three-piece band. But even if the tour was successful enough to save the band from the financial anarchy of the orchestral tour, this would be the end of an era. The advent of punk rock and disco music had brought on a general reaction against progressive rock and the ‘dinosaur’ bands of the seventies had to either adapt or simply disappear into oblivion. 1978’s ‘Love Beach’ album was ELP’s attempt at a compromise between the two musical worlds. There were still some interesting avenues to explore but their heart wasn’t in it anymore. The band didn’t even tour in support of the new album, deciding instead to call it a day. Fans would have to wait another 14 years to see Emerson, Lake and Palmer together again on a live stage.
But even if the ‘Works’ era signalled the start of ELP’s downfall, the difficult 1977 tour was by no means a total waste. Audiences who attended either the orchestral or the three-piece concerts were treated to some of ELP’s most stellar live performances ever. Such was the case with the show which we now bring you, recorded on the first of two nights at the Boston Garden in July 1977. This was one of the many nights where ELP performed without the orchestra but, as you will hear, the band was on fire that night, each song as energetic and spectacular as the next. The absence of the orchestra forced the exclusion of some songs such as ‘Abaddon’s Bolero’, ‘The Enemy God’ and ‘Closer To Believing’ but the incredible performance of all the other numbers more than makes up for that. Enjoy !
PRRP Staff
Notes from the Re-Master
This show was sourced from a CD version of a 1st generation cassette tape. The man who provided photographs of the event was sitting right near the taper and recalls the set-up:
“I wasn't taping that time but I sat behind a guy (from Providence I think) who had a Nak 550 (recorder) with Nak CM-100's and CP4 shotgun mike capsules, so there's a good chance that he was the source. He was up front and had to be stealthy, so he kept his shotgun mikes well below head level, aimed almost straight up at the PA. I never liked that setup. I thought the CP1 cardioid capsules sounded better and I always kept them above head level in order to get sound from the stage monitors. It was worth the risk of getting shut down. I would have traded backward several rows to get a better position. “
In any event, the quality of the sound is outstanding with clear signal up to 17,000Hz. The most obvious problem with the show was the tonality. The sub-bass components were very excessive. Additional adjustments to the bass section were also needed to balance the tone. Small adjustments in the mid-range and treble sections were made to enhance detail. Hiss was also a problem and its reduction allowed more subtle sections of the music to be better appreciated.
Audience noise was a big problem. Applause was excessively loud and whistlers seemed to congregate around the taper. Permanent hearing loss could be the result of listening to the raw version of this show through headphones due to the volume of these whistles. Lots of time was taken to reduce the whistles and other audience noises. Cuts in the recording did occur but were only found during applause sections. Mix-pasting fixed this minor flaw and allowed a continuous listening experience. Finally, the discs were re-balanced to roughly equalize the amount of music on each disc.
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