Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Live at Nassau Coliseum '78 (Shout! Factory)

I’ll be the first to admit it – ELP were a very silly band. If Carl Palmer‘s continuous drum soloing weren’t enough, you had Keith Emerson‘s ridiculous keyboard noodling and ultra-cheesy synthesizer sounds to make you groan. I have a soft spot in my heart for them, though; when I was a teenage record fiend raiding my mom’s collection, ELP stood apart from Yes and PFM, mainly because they actually got really heavy in parts. I’ve never been able to stomach Brain Salad Surgery, but I still like to blast Tarkus every now and then.

So I’m quite happy with this live album, which draws from all of ELP’s albums up to February 1978 except for Brain Salad Surgery. Disc one of the concert opens with the driving “Hoedown” from Trilogy and continues the pace with the side-long title track from Tarkus, in this case a particularly interesting rendition that seems to include some improvisation toward the end. The band quiets down for “Take a Pebble” from their eponymous debut, then Emerson does the first movement from his “Piano Concerto No. 1” from Works Volume 1 before the band blasts through their version of Scott Joplin‘s “Maple Leaf Rag.” Things mellow out once again for a Greg Lake solo set featuring a reprise of “Take a Pebble,” “C’est La Vie” and a particularly pretty version of “Lucky Man” that doesn’t get ruined by Keith Emerson’s cheesy synth at the end. “Pictures at an Exhibition” bombastically closes the disc.

Disc two opens with “Tiger in a Spotlight” from Works Volume 2, then relaxes a bit for another Greg Lake solo piece, “Watching Over You,” a lullaby he wrote for his daughter. Carl Palmer then becomes the focus with a trilogy of “Tank,” a bona fide “Drum Solo” and “The Enemy God Dances with the Black Spirits.” “Nutrocker” brings the band back into focus and they conclude their show with “Pirates” and an encore of “Fanfare for the Common Man” that oddly sounds a lot like ’80s video game music.

Sure it’s a lot of self-indulgent uber-musicianship that seems to glorify dexterity over song-craft at times, but it’s also a lot of fun if you have a sense of humor that allows you to appreciate cheesy music like Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I’ll still take them over Yes, PFM or Rush any day, though not over King Crimson and definitely not over Goblin.

Not too long after this concert, Keith Emerson composed a stellar soundtrack for Dario Argento‘s Inferno. He can’t be all bad then, can he?