LIVE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL

Welcome back my friends...but don´t expect it to be quite the same Documenting the early 90´s ELP reunion, that live CD left me thinking that it could have been better. Or maybe not. The song selection will always be questionable, since they have enough good stuf to fill various CDs (In fact, they have four very good studio albums and then some decent material here and there). So we have here gems like the Tarkus shortened medley, Creole Dance, Still...you turn me on, mixed with the controversial Pirates (Maybe a proof that long songs are not necesarily that good?), an interesting version of Romeo and Juliet, the hit Lucky man (Hardly one of their best), a couple of songs from their (then) new album, which are OK but far from matching the old stuff, as well as the dispensable Medley at the end. But the songs are not the main problem. The low aspects of the album for me are sound and performance. Let´s see: Emerson. Suddenly, he´s not half the keyboard player he used to be. His playing is uninspired and dirty, and he uses many (then) new tones that don´t really work. Just compare the version of Creole dance to the original. Lake. His voice was clearly eroded by time´s rivers to the shape it then possessed. But then, he remains a good singer, even if his voice is not the same. His bass tone lacks some of the edge and power of the good old days, and the performance is correct, no more than that. Palmer. He keeps on using those awful electronic drums that really bother me most of the time. His playing is surely below his own standards and tempo problems show up in some parts (well, keeping the tempo was never Palmer´s specialty, anyway). Not really a bad one, but shows that they couldn´t do it on stage anymore (As they used to, at least) Somewhere between two and three stars.