Emerson Lake & Palmer
Live at the
Royal Albert Hall
Shout Factory – DVD
visit ELP's website
also available on amazon
This is the release of a 1992 concert at The Royal Albert Hall to showcase ELP’s then “new” album release, Black Moon, and includes some of the new album as well as much of their repertoire from the 70s. This group showed that they had not lost anything in the 14-year absence from performing as a group, and their new material keeps up with their tradition of blending the lines of Classical Music and Rock and Roll. It has the power and majesty of the full symphony and the energy and rawness of R & R. It is hard to imagine this power coming from only 3 people, yet when one sees the vast array of keyboards the Keith Emerson plays, most of the time standing between the 2 banks of the keyboards, and playing both banks simultaneously it is understandable. This DVD showcases the power and majesty that made this group such a force in the 1970s. Emerson, formerly of The Nice, hasn’t been captured tickling the ivories so loosely with his freewheeling and devil may care style of playing is magnificent on the keys, whether proding them to full power or showing off the subtle nuances that demonstrate his prowess to coax the most subtle sounds from them. Carl Palmer whose work on the drums is equally
amazing and subtle with grace at the same time, showed why his former band, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, was such a powerhouse in rock circles. Greg Lake, of King Crimson, has rarely been captured in finer voice than at this gig, and his nuanced playing on bass or occasionally on guitar stands out and the force of the other two never overshadows his playing.
This 70 odd minute DVD is a wonderful addition to the musical library for afar ranging variety of reasons, not the least of which is for historical purposes, you can see where the music you are listening to today had some of its roots. There is the power and majesty of the music these three musicians generate, and for what was, and still is some of the finest blending of classical music with Rock and Roll.