THE CARL PALMER BAND : LIVE IN EUROPE

Having listened to Keith Emerson & The Nice's "Vivacitas" CD, which has lots of guitar on it (and in my opinion is extremely good) and seen Greg Lake's live DVD, again with an additional guitarist, I wanted to see Carl Palmer's band without any keyboards. Well, I think it's pretty good. On the whole, the guitarist, Paul Bielatowicz, does a really good job playing Emerson's parts.

One gripe I have is that, like some ELP DVD's, when you see the track "Tarkus" you expect the whole lot. Unfortunately, on this DVD, the track "Tarkus" is in fact "Eruption" merging into "Aquatarkus". And it really is "unfortunately", because they do them so well that I'm left wanting to see (and hear) them doing all of it. Emerson did all of "Tarkus" on "Vivacitas" (and did it really well, but then he would, wouldn't he!), and I feel this band could do all of it too. The other gripe is that "Trilogy" isn't complete either, it's only blasting along during the end credits, again such a shame as it sounds like a cracking version.

The bass player, Dave Marks, is pretty good. If you like the Police (they're not my "cup of tea"), you'll love his solo spot. If you are the Police, you'll be worried that one bass player is better than your whole 3 piece band!

Having seen this DVD, Lake's DVD and heard Emerson & The Nice's CD (not to mention the ELP "Albert Hall" DVD), I really want to see all of these bands and ELP, preferably at the same venue one after another (or even all together!). That would be a "festival" gig worth going to, eh! Perhaps I'll just have to hang on to that dream!