Emerson, Lake & Palmer performed on this day in 1977 at the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, California.
ELP were at this time on their Works Tour, which took them throughout North America. They were nearing the end of the turbulent first leg of the tour at this concert. This leg of the tour had begun with an orchestra in tow. However, early in June, the group and the orchestra were forced to part ways barring a few special concerts due to budgetary issues. The second and third legs of the tour, which would begin in October 1977 and January 1978 respectively, would see the band attempting to recoup their financial losses.
Setlist
The band’s setlist featured numbers from every album they had thus far released: “Take a Pebble”, “Knife-Edge”, “Tank” (later reworked for Works, Volume 1 and thus counted for both albums) and “Lucky Man” to represent the debut album; the title track from Tarkus to represent that album; an abridged version of Pictures at an Exhibition; “Hoedown” from Trilogy; and “Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Part 2” and “Still…You Turn Me On” from Brain Salad Surgery.
The album in support of which the band was appearing, Works: Volume 1, got only three songs on the official setlist; these two were “C’est la Vie”, “Tank”, and “Pirates”. Usually, these were followed by the encore tracks “Fanfare for the Common Man” and “Rondo”. These tracks make no appearance on the recording of this concert, however, so are not included in the setlist. Unless something unusual happened on this night, the band would have just included these numbers as well, and they have simply been omitted from the setlist.fm source as an oversight. If the band played the encore, then Works and the debut would be tied for greatest representation onstage.
As I alluded to above, this concert is known to have been recorded. It is in circulation online.
Post Sources
Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoyed this post, please consider donating on my ko-fi page or becoming a patron on my patreon. I appreciate your help!