Welcome Back, My Friends, To The Show That Never Ends - Ladies And Gentlemen… [3 LP]

There is so much to say about how important this record is. When I was in high school in 1985 I had never listened to ELP until a drummer that we jammed with one afternoon let me borrow two vinyl records Brain Salad Surgery and this one, Welcome Back My Friends. This was wilder music than I had been accustomed to listening to and I was blown away by what these three guys could do with their instruments. I was soon hooked on prog rock and it was largely because of this album in particular. The band were talented musicians in every capacity in their own right and here you hear them in their prime weaving a tapestry of classical music and a little jazz cranked up through loud rock amplifiers and performed with incredible pyrotechnics on piano, Hammond B3 and the most explosive use of the Moog synthesizer as a live performance instrument as you have heard since; on a bass guitar that is dark and round and then hard and gritty again or morphed through a synth & on dizzying percussion that is at times triumphant and bombastic or simple and subdued and filled with a varied spectrum of timpani's, gongs and electronic beats that keep your ear interested as well as metered along the wild winding ride through a prog rock countryside. To the critics who have felt their music was a little over the top, it was and is and that is exactly why we love it. Here you hear the band live bringing this complicated, challenging material to the people. There is a reason why this live recording was a top seller in its day and it I because the proof is in the pudding. This is not three virtuoso players meticulously nailing well rehearsed arrangements to pin point perfection it is three rockers executing a masterful performance of this music live that lives and breathes down to the pregnant pause of a piano chord to some fancy melodies blazing out of the Hammond off the cuff and incredible in the middle of daring arrangements that could become a train wreck in a second for lesser players. Greg Lake's voice is incredible and he joins Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer in bringing their wild blend of classical, rock bravado and mythology to bear on a willing waiting audience. This album is the best of what was great about prog rock and an artistic statement about the potential of man to create incredible music. With the passing of Keith Emerson I have gone back to revisit these albums a lot over recent days and I am suddenly aware of how profoundly this music has shaped my perspective on how I pursue my own music. In a world of cookie cutter pop songs, auto tune and lip sync it is an incredible insight into what people are really capable of actually performing and pulling off live to listen to this live performance by this band. Glad they had a chance to do it. Glad they recorded it. With this recording the show will indeed never end. If you have never heard this band then this one is a great start. If you have then Welcome back my friends...

great conditioned at a great price

When I first bought this album in '74 right after seeing them in Wash. DC, I was a bit disappointed at the sound quality. The only thing that really jumped out at you was Greg's voice and Keith's Moog. Carl's drums and Keith's Hammond were buried in the background like they were recorded in the upper bleachers. Well, BMG comes to the rescue. Finally after over 40 years of whining and moaning, BMG comes along and does a complete overhaul with the master tapes and the results are stunning. Every instrument is finally balanced well into the mix, this is how the album should've sounded all along. I think the album was rushed in to production after all the publicity they were getting from the massive tour they embarked a year earlier, and the exposure they were getting from the Cal Jam show even put more thumbscrews to the powers that be. All I can say is, ITS ABOUT TIME!

What to say that hasn't already been said about this iconic album? ELP were the "it" band in the early '70s. Even us folks living in the sticks of NC had heard of them. Prog Rock was big. Bands like YES, ELP, Pink Floyd and others defined the genre to an entire generation. I long had this on vinyl, but after Keith's tragic suicide I wanted it on CD. Unfortunately it was out of print, but Amazon must have bought rights to manufacture it as a CD-R disc. This was fine, and it plays perfectly. I would not recommend leaving such CD-R discs exposed to direct sunlight or too much heat, to maximize the longevity. This live album was the first one many of us growing up in the 1970s ever bought, and put on a decent stereo of the day, it could blow everyone away at a party. Long live ELP!

... this is a pretty fine album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I especially like the fact that I get the distinct feeling I'm listening to a TRULY live album rather than, say, "Eagles Live," the 1980 disc rumored to have been subjected to so many studio overdubs during postproduction that it isn't really "live" at all.You can hear, for example, a few slurry notes -- and even a couple of outright mistakes -- from keyboardist Keith Emerson on the opening track "Hoedown." You can hear, on "Take A Pebble," vocalist/bassist sliding up to a note on one phrase where it sounds like he was on the verge of going flat. And Carl Palmer -- surely one of the greatest drummers of his generation -- actually rushes the beat a little on one section of "Toccata."These are the things, actually, that help make live performances memorable. It isn't that these guys, virtuosos one and all, are screwing up badly; it's just that they're dealing with the stage environment, where nerves, fatigue, distraction and other elements sometimes come into play.Overall, the performances are just brilliant. I've always been impressed by Emerson's ability to handle multiple keyboard parts; here, he routinely holds down an organ part while playing a Moog synthesizer solo, or vice versa -- and sometimes does this while covering the bass line with his feet, if Lake happened to be playing guitar instead of bass at that moment. As for Lake, he's somewhat underrated as a bassist. People like Chris Squire of Yes and the late John Entwistle of the Who got more attention over the years, but Lake is a fine player in his own right; the Who, in fact, called upon Lake to provide the bass part for a song called "Old Red Wine" after Entwistle's death. And Lake's tone is excellent, mixing in low rumbling and mid-range growl. Palmer is just a joy to listen to, as he blends jazz phrasing and classical flourishes with a heavier rock touch.Standouts on this disc: A complete performance of "Tarkus," the sidelong composition from the band's second album; an excellent arrangement of Lake's "Take A Pebble" that incorporates "Lucky Man" and "Still ... You Turn Me On"; and, best of all, a complete (even a little extended) performance of "Karn Evil 9," the band's masterful epic that appeared on "Brain Salad Surgery."Live albums succeed or fail based not only on the musical performances but also on the mood the band establishes or fails to establish. On this disc, ELP clearly are having a good time, and so is the audience. I recommend it.