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Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Works Live (1977)

Track listing:
  1. Introductory Fanfare 0:50
  2. Peter Gunn 3:32
  3. Tiger In A Spotlight 4:07
  4. C'est La Vie 4:12
  5. Watching Over You 3:57
  6. Maple Leaf Rag 1:11
  7. The Enemy God 2:44
  8. Fanfare For The Common Man 10:54
  9. Knife Edge 5:01
  10. Show Me The Way To Go Home 4:20
  11. Abadon's Bolero 6:01
  12. Pictures At An Exhibition 15:41
  13. Closer To Believing 5:27
  14. Piano Concerto No.1 6:40
  15. Tank 12:38

Notes

This two-CD set consists of the reissue of the 1979 LP In Concert, significantly augmented. This live album is taken from Emerson, Lake & Palmer's disastrous (at least financially) tour of 1977. Recorded at the Montreal Olympic Stadium (pictured on the cover of both albums), it features the trio performing with a symphony orchestra. By this time, ELP had become a huge corporate machine and much of the spirit that inhabited them in the early '70s had dissipated through internal feuds. Despite its flawed sound quality, Works Live has a few things to offer, especially to fans of Greg Lake, since his songs — "C'Est la Vie," "Watching Over You," "Closer to Believing," and his interpretation of "Show Me the Way to Go Home" — occupy more room than usual. Prog rock fans will be delighted by "Pictures at an Exhibition," here shorter, tighter, and obviously more symphonic than the group's 1971 recording. If "Abaddon's Bolero," an obscure track from Trilogy, is a surprising inclusion, it will make nobody's day. The CD reissue adds much material, including versions of "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Tank," each over ten minutes long. If Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends captured the trio at its artistic peak, Works Live mostly underlines its excesses and epitomizes the creative shortfall of its latter days.