Once again I doth findeth myself on the receiving end of an earful of baffling wonderment and wtf-ishness. For the purists who grew up with ELP, I realize this album was released overseas in the fall of 1971, but over here it was 1972, and if you were here in North America then it was 1972 for you too. As far as I'm concerned, this is a 1972 release, as that’s what was stamped on the centre of the record.Here we have a live album that astounds with the sheer scope of what this trio was trying to accomplish. Recorded live at Newcastle City Hall on 26 March 1971, the little hall's capacity for an all-standing audience is apparently around 2,600 people. I suspect they played to a full house.
With only two albums under their belt, their self-titled debut and Tarkus, proposing a live album only a year or so after arriving on the scene was pretty ballsy. What they wanted to record was their arrangement of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s piano pieces, which he penned to describe paintings in sound, called Pictures at an Exhibition.I've been listening to this off and on for about a week, and I am as beguiled today as I was when I first dropped the needle. My opinion ranges from “Man, this is cool” to “What am I listening to?” When I question the music, what I’m really complaining about are some of the instrumentation choices in a few places particularly by keyboardist Keith Emerson. Yes, I know I am looking through the wrong end of the telescope with such complaints, as the sounds on display were absolutely bleeding edge at the time.
The results are, at times, spectacular and, on occasion, a cacophonous riot of ear-piercing noise. I tend to lean toward spectacular. The conundrum for me is: “Where is the single?” You know, that musical nugget. The shiny object that you want to listen to over and over.
It may not have been a single, but it’s the original composition “The Sage,” nestled between “Promenade (Pt. 2)” and “The Old Castle,” that stands out for me. Greg Lake shows off his playing prowess, and it is a wonderful piece of music and one of the rare vocal performances on the record. This isn’t a shoehorned piece for the sake of having Greg sing either. This is a companion piece, fitted deliberately to mesh with Mussorgsky’s work.Speaking of meshing with Mussorgsky’s work, there are a few original pieces interwoven seamlessly through the performance. The first side plays like one long piece, and while “The Sage” works on its own, it is integral to the experience. The concluding movement (not song, see what I did there?) is “Blues Variation,” which is essentially an extended jam with structure composed by the trio.
The band’s encore, “Nutrocker,” is something you need to hear at least once. I’m not sure if the band is taking the piss or simply having a good time. It borders so closely on parody that I tend to think of it as the band’s way of letting people know they actually have a sense of humour and aren’t just a trio of pretentious musical wankers. The audience seemed to get it. I actually kind of love it, but I don’t need to hear it again for a while.
It’s been interesting to hear how this has gotten under my skin through repeated plays. I wasn’t really going to spend a lot of time with this one. I played it and thought it was cool, and really ambitious, but not exactly a casual listen. The band was giving it everything they had, and to not at least give them my attention seemed like a disservice.I don’t know how often this will come down, but my goodness, this is pretty cool.
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