WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS

This live album is one of the best examples of Prog Rock excess, at least for some people. I was interested in this album in 1982 because I liked very much the "Tarkus" and "Brain Salad Surgery" albums. The album starts with "Hoedown", played at an amazing "high speed", more than the original version. A great start for a concert. Emerson`s fingers are on "fire". He is one of the "high speed" keyboard players. Maybe this was the reason he had problems with his hands in the 90s, having to receive surgery to keep playing with ELP. "Jerusalem" is an emotive performance. "Toccata" is played good, but it is not very interesting for me, since it has a lot of 70s synthesizer sound effects or "noises". "Tarkus" is a great version, more "dynamic" and "heavy" than the studio version. It also has some space for long solos. In this song, the "Battlefield" section has a lead guitar by Lake, with Emerson playing the bass parts in one of his keyboards. Also in "Tarkus", the "Aquatarkus" section is too long for me, with a lot of space for Emerson`s solos. Lake`s songs, "Take a peeble" (played by the trio), "Still...you turn me on" and "Lucky man", the last two played by Lake alone with an acoustic guitar, are good, and they give the listener a rest for the ears (and maybe to Emerson`s fingers, too, in the last two songs). Emerson returns for his "Piano Improvisations", which also includes a Jazz piece played by the trio, showing their talent for playing different styles. It shows that Emerson is, first, a very good piano player, and also a very good organ/synthesizers player. This part of the concert ends with the trio returning to "Take a peeble". The "Jeremy Bender/The Sheriff" medley is very good, showing also a bit of humour in the end of the medley. Both songs were played with Emerson`s piano sounding like a "piano from the old west" pictures. "Karn Evil" is the next piece of music, which in the original 3 record set was in Sides Five and Six. This song has 3 sections ("1st Impression", "2nd Impression", "3rd Impression"), very different in structure, and it took me sometime to really consider these 3 parts as parts of the same song. I think that the "1st Impression" section is sung by Emerson (as in the studio version). His voice is similar as Lake`s. There is also a guitar solo, with Emerson again playing the bass parts in one of his keyboards. Carl Palmer`s Percussion solo ("Con Brio" as the cover says) is amazing. A very good demostration of his skills and technique, one of the best drums and percussion solos that I have heard. The "2nd Impression" part is instrumental, more "quiet" than the first. The "3rd Impression" part is sung by Lake, and it is also sometimes "heavy", ending "Karn Evil" with Emerson`s "strange synthesizer sounds" (I don`t know if in 1974 there were programmable keyboards ,as the keyboard has increasing speed). This is a very good live album, and like "Yesshows", the recording is not very good, in my opinion. In some songs there are a lot of echoes.