Emerson, Lake & Palmer performed on this day in 1973 at Ostseehalle in Kiel, Germany.
This date was the first concert the group played in 1973, which would prove to be another huge year for the group. It was also the first concert on the Get Me A Ladder Tour, which the band undertook throughout the spring. Unlike the previous tours the group had undertaken, there was no completed album waiting in the wings for a release during the tour.
However, that wasn’t to say that there was no music to share with the world! 1973 was the year that ELP unleashed Brain Salad Surgery, though at this point it had yet to be recorded. Based on bootlegs from this tour, it seems that while a lot of it the group was still workshopping portions of their music; Karn Evil 9, for instance, pops up from place to place, though with a slightly different order of lyrics from the finished product.
The Get Me A Ladder Tour was also featured in a documentary released by the group’s new label, Manticore Records. The manticore, of course, first showed up in the ELP mythos as a creature fought by Tarkus the armored armadillo within the title track of Tarkus. The documentary itself was a fairly down-to-earth look at life on tour, with a few interludes showing the members of the group partaking in their various hobbies back home in England.
According to a news clipping, over 5000 people showed up to the concert, a promisingly large crowd for the first night of the tour! (Source)
There is no known recording of this concert.
The band performed at Ostseehalle, a large arena space today known as Sparkassen Arena which was first opened in 1951. The primary use of this venue is apparently handball, though a great many concerts (including these) have also taken place here. In its concert setting, it apparently holds over 13,000 people.
It’s website can be found here.