High Voltage Festival,Victoria Park, London July10

My views for what they are worth:

Pleasantly surprised by festival. attended sunday, good range of food, reasonable price, very few queues, good weather, and walked through Bethnal Green at night without getting mugged....a real result. In fact the only knife action I saw all night was Emerson stabbing his Hammond.

went sunday.

steve Hackett , excellent, would have loved to see more of him, and his bass player...wow!
Magnum - yawwn
Uriah Heep - really rather good, great to hear that album live.
Opeth - very good, though made mistake of being in row 2 surrounded by kids, spot the old fart!
Down n' outz - technically proficient but dull

ELP - expecting the very worst, but very pleasantly surprised, in fact really enjoyed their set. Lake's voice better than in '92, Palmer spot as as usual, but Emerson was much better than I expected. This guy has been through the mill and I was not sure he was even going to make this festival. You can see the fingers curled up on his right hand as he plays,He is never going to be able to play like he did in  '74, but i don't give a toss. If this is their swansong, which it may be, then they went out on a high note, and I was glad i was there to see it.

the end

NutterAlert wrote: My views for what they are worth:Pleasantly surprised by festival. attended sunday, good range of food, reasonable price, very few queues, good weather, and walked through Bethnal Green at night without getting mugged....a real result. In fact the only knife action I saw all night was Emerson stabbing his Hammond.went sunday.steve Hackett , excellent, would have loved to see more of him, and his bass player...wow!Magnum - yawwnUriah Heep - really rather good, great to hear that album live.Opeth - very good, though made mistake of being in row 2 surrounded by kids, spot the old fart!Down n' outz - technically proficient but dullELP - expecting the very worst, but very pleasantly surprised, in fact really enjoyed their set. Lake's voice better than in '92, Palmer spot as as usual, but Emerson was much better than I expected. This guy has been through the mill and I was not sure he was even going to make this festival. You can see the fingers curled up on his right hand as he plays,He is never going to be able to play like he did in  '74, but i don't give a toss. If this is their swansong, which it may be, then they went out on a high note, and I was glad i was there to see it.the end

Full respect for braving the Opeth mosh pit

Alan and I watched from a safe distance. Thankfully there were no severed limbs of ageing prog fans flying over our heads from the front. I did chuckle when Mr Ackerfeldt announced 'We are Poison rom LA, and I'm Bret Michaels'

Blacksword wrote: chopper wrote: JD wrote: Lakes voice is weak, Carl avoids the 'fills' that helped define not only his style but in some ways the genre itself, and Keith, well his runs aren't as fast or accurate s those of years past.   Lake's voice has changed in tone and he doesn't have the range he did (which is normal for singers of his age) but I wouldn't say his voice was "weak" yesterday. Fair point about Emerson, he can't do the faster runs but he has had wrist/hand problems. I actually thought Palmer was pretty impressive yesterday. We have to realise that "Welcome Back My Friends..." is over 30 years ago now, we can't expect these bands to be the same nowadays. Yeah, I didn't think his voice was particularly weak. He was more in tune on Tarkus, than he was on the original.. Yep, Palmer sure hasn't lost it. He was and is a truly fantastic drummer.

richardh wrote: Carl's and Keith's fluency is nowhere near what it was and this a definite problem when you are playing weighty instrumental peices like Pictures and Tarkus. What was telling is when they started Pictures and it had some real intent. But what followed was pretty dull to be honest. Carl is an excellent drummer nowadays but in the seventies was almost godlike and no one would have dared to say then he was merely 'excellent' then. Unfair to criticse? Perhaps given that time marches on but as I said when you play long instrumental peices it needed a bit more. But I wasn't surprised.ELP had to put on a show as much like the seventes as they could. This festival was a nostalgia trip pure and simple.Until someone invents a time machine it will do very nicely!

I saw elp in 74 and bought t shirt and said I would only wear at elp gig so it came out sunday, elp were brill few sound probs accepted. Bring on tour fellas

NutterAlert wrote: steve Hackett , excellent, would have loved to see more of him, and his bass player...wow!

I hope the comments about the bass player are directed at bass playing talent rather than attractiveness. I believe under the blond plaits and leather skirt, Steve Hackett said it was Nick Beggs.

My Highlights 

Blacksword wrote: richardh wrote: BTW I'm pleased that people enjoyed ELP's performance. I know Blacksword is not the biggest ELP fan so his positive comments are very welcome. I think in general ELP went down great and put on the sort of show that only they could. The festival needed to be ended with a bang and it literally was!   Other bands I saw   Wishbone Ash - Found them a bit boring Steve Hackett - Superb band performance ,extremely tight. Seemed to have some sound problems towards the end though which was annoying. Uriah Heep - Came across as a parody of prog rock. Sorry! Argent - Sheer class. Set pleasing collection of songs including Its Only Money,I don't Believe In Miracles,She's Not There,Since You've Been Gone,Hold Your Head Up and of course God Gave Rock n Roll to You when they went to great pains to explain that they were the band that recorded this orginally!   There's hope for me yet, Richard. I've listened to a lot of ELP today..! Even dug out my DVD of 'Welcome Back'

Did nobody go on Saturday? 

raindance wrote: Wilcey wrote: Did nobody go on Saturday?    Yep! Highlight of the day was Transatlantic who played 'The Whirlwind' in its entirety. They were joined on stage by Steve Hackett for an encore of 'Giant Hogweed'. Whilst it was a nice surprise I'd have preferred one of their songs!