Last night I had the pleasure of escorting my 16 year old daughter to the Emerson and Lake concert here in Indianapolis. Palmer could not make it, so they sent Memorex in his place.

Being a drummer, I was a little disappointed because I have never seen the Palmer of the trio perform. That being said, it was still worth it because Keith Emerson is a freak on the keyboards. When I see talent like his, I can’t help but admire the gift of music and the musicians that can express themselves through their art.

It was a cool concert because the venue was small. The stage setup was a recording studio with the guy behind in the booth. Yet, the stage had the feeling like a couple of guys playing in your living room. They played some of their popular songs that featured Greg Lake on acoustic guitar and of course Keith Emerson’s myriad of keyboards.

They even took questions from the audience. One guy was like the annoying kid at school who sits on the edge of his desk raising his hand, going “Teacher…teacher..me me!” The other notable feature of the night was the annoying blond woman in front of us that would not sit down. She had obviously been drinking for most of the evening and was toasted by the end of the show. As both my daughter and I are musicians, it was annoying because we really wanted to see them perform.

(We have a history of being stuck behind idiots at concerts. Our Rush experience together was also tainted with a drunken blond in front of us. Then she reminded of the drunken woman at the Kansas concert several years ago. While I did not remember it when she mentioned it, the cobwebs cleared and I recall what she was talking about).

The highlight for my daughter was concluding the show with “Pirates”. It is off their Works album and one of the best ELP songs ever. They told us a funny story about how Leonard Bernstein was in Paris when they were recording it. They shared it with him and his response was, “The singer is pretty good.” As for the rest of it, he shook his head in disgust.

They are touring all over the US, so if you are interested, I say it is worth the admission. Tour information can be found at www.greglake.com
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