Greg Lake at the Orchard, Dartford

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It's so much nicer to see a concert in a small, intimate theatre such
as this, rather than venues like Wembley where you're miles from the
stage and the sound is terrible. The gigs I go to nowadays are more
like the theatre - they start on time and there's even an interval with
ice creams! I even felt quite young last night as well. The only
problem is a slight lack of atmosphere as everyone remains seated, but
this is more listening music than get-up-and-boogie music.

Starting off with "In the court of the crimson king", Greg provided
almost 2 hours of great entertainment. This is an excellent venue and
the sound was almost perfect (only the bass was mixed a bit low, but
I'm biased in this respect being a bass player myself. Mind you, he
made up for it later on with the fretboard lights!). A great version of
"From the beginning" followed, with Greg making everyone wait for the
guitar bit that leads back into the title line. There were also great
versions of A Farewell To Arms and an epic "Take A Pebble", featuring a
virtuoso acoustic performance from the 22-year old Florian Opahle. He
certainly has all the guitar god moves and is definitely one to watch. 

Greg himself was in fine voice - some people (including me) have said
that his voice was going, but tonight it sounded as good as ever.

A nice version of "I believe in Father Christmas"  followed,
complete with audience wisecrack about it being Greg's pension. Greg
introduced two members of his charity band who joined in "Lucky Man",
complete with Moog solo. They even did a brilliant version of 21st
Schizoid Man with the full diddly-diddly middle section. 

They stormed back after the afore-mentioned interval with "Fanfare for
the common man", we got "Pictures at an exhibition" (parts of which I
didn't recognise, but then I haven't heard the full version for a
while) and the obligatory encore was the "Welcome back my friends"
section of "Karn Evil 9".

All in all a fantastic gig - where else can you see one of the giants of
prog playing King Crimson and ELP classics in a great venue for £23?

Gig of the year? - no contest.

Edited by chopper