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The Nice - Elegy (1971)

Track listing:
  1. Hang on to a dream
  2. My back pages
  3. 3rd movement
  4. America
  5. Diamond - Hard blue apples of
  6. Dawn
  7. Tantalising Maggie
  8. Cry of Eugene
  9. Daddy where did I come from
  10. Azirial

Notes


No orchestra this time, which makes this merely obscure instead of obscure and bizarre. Two of three tracks are taken from what is implied on the jacket to be the same Fillmore East concert that is featured on Nice, but according to Keith Emerson was actually a later concert at the Fillmore West ("Hang On To A Dream," done better in the studio on Nice; "America," the A-side that leads off Ars Longa). Without a second lead instrument to entertain the audience, the focus is on Emerson's famous feedback-drenched organ-busting antics and endless, jazzy soloing. Again, it's of interest only to fans who want to know what the band sounded like live - pretty much the same way they sounded in the studio, only more long-winded. The rest of the record comprises a long, energetic studio cut of Dylan's "My Back Pages," marred by Jackson's screechy scat singing.