Emerson, Lake & Palmer performed at the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium in Kitchener, Ontario on this day in 1978.
Once again, ELP did this concert as a part of the Works tour. This was the third date of this leg and of the year; after this date the group dipped south of the border.
The setlist of this tour was both a tribute to earlier work by the band and an introduction for concertgoers to their newest songs off Works, Volume 1 and Works, Volume 2. Sometimes, the two were combined in interesting ways, such as how “Take a Pebble” and the first movement of “Piano Concerto No. 1” seamlessly blended into one another early in the program. Based on my research, “Tarkus” didn’t appear to show up every night, but it did on this particular one.
The concert has been recorded and is in circulation online.
The venue at which they performed, Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, was yet another primarily-hockey venue, continuing a theme among the Canadian venues I’ve thus far explored. It was built on the site of an auditorium and dance hall which burned to the ground in the 1940s. The new building from its outset was designed with multiple event types in mind, with a noted convertible floor; this would allow for a twenty-four hour transition between event types (source). A 2012 renovation added around 1000 seats to the original number, apparently bringing the capacity to around 7800 (source). Other places state that this was always capacity, however.
From its opening on May 24, 1951, the auditorium has hosted many great concerts, some of which are detailed here.