Magnificent Excess: The Story of ELP

They were still a hot live band even in 1978. I have the 2 CD set of them playing Wheeling, West Virginia and highly recommend it. So much better than the Works tour in all honest truth although Montreal 1977 was a great event. When they got back to the studio in 1978 they should have taken that energy and put it into a great album. The demos for Love Beach were promising espcially Canario and Memoir's but they were too intent on pushing a radio style album. That said I've always maintained that with decent production it could have been something. The album cover is now legendary for all the wrong reasons but to be fair they were good looking boys (for a prog band) so it wasn't totally an insane idea! I saw them play Top Of The Pops in 1978 (alongside the likes of Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip) and it was all very surreal. They even had the Yamaha GX1 wheeled into the studio although Palmer's kit was very pared down if I remember right.