sbrock1san.rr.com Posted February 9, 2001 Share Posted February 9, 2001 Tommorrow night I am going to see a Yes tribute band called Roundabout, playing with an Emerson, Lake, and Palmer tribute band, at a small club. I've been thinking about this all day. Who the heck has the chops and nerve to cover ELP ? Those are really demanding songs and I'm sure someone can pull it off but let's be honest....even Keith Emerson has to work real hard to play some of that stuff. If anyone has seen an ELP tribute let me know what you thought. I love tribute bands and I am generally very impressed. In fact, the Steely Dan tribute band in this city(San Diego) is an 11 or 12 piece group that is better than the real thing. Also, I read in an interview with Rick Wakeman, and another one with Emerson, where they talked about a tour they were planning TOGETHER. If anyone has an update on that I would love to know. I know they are considered dinosaurs by some but that would be an interesting show to see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tusker Posted February 10, 2001 Share Posted February 10, 2001 Steve: I hope you'll tell us what it was like. Cheers, Jerry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joegerardi Posted February 10, 2001 Share Posted February 10, 2001 In the 70's I was in a band that was sort of an ELP tribute band. We did one set of Yes, one set of Genesis, and one set of ELP. Whist yes, you might think that it is tough work, and it is, it was also a keyboard players dream gig. It was also probably the shortest set list you've ever seen. For the ELP set we played a total of 4 songs - Hoedown, Tarkus, KE9 2nd half of the 1st, and the second side of Pictures. It was the last set of the night ands we would encore with Blues Variation. The other sets had equally few songs titles in them, too. Setup: Korg Kronos 61, Roland XV-88, Korg Triton-Rack, Motif-Rack, Korg N1r, Alesis QSR, Roland M-GS64 Yamaha KX-88, KX76, Roland Super-JX, E-Mu Longboard 61, Kawai K1II, Kawai K4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbrock1san.rr.com Posted February 10, 2001 Author Share Posted February 10, 2001 OK- a quick review for those interested. The first group--Brain Salad Surgeons. They were really good and they've only been together for 5 months. Now you won't believe this. The keyboard player had a modular Moog set-up. I asked him after the show how he got it and he said about a year ago he found one in New York and had it shipped to California. He found the parts to make it work through ELP's tech guy, forget his name, Will ? Anyway, he definitely knew a lot of the songs really well. His piano playing was excellent but his organ playing was lacking in the energy that Emo has. No, he didn't stick any knives in the organ....maybe next time. The club was real small so the keyboard sounds weren't as big as an ELP show. The singer is the real talent of that group. I was very surprised and everyone talked about what a great voice he has. It's tough to pull off ELP in a small club but they were well rehearsed. The keyboardist should somehow add a little distortion or something to beef up his sounds. They were too clean. The Lucky Man solo was dead on and the song Trilogy was a highlight. The Yes tribute Roundabout didn't fare as well. They couldn't pull off the lead vocals and the harmonies. They still had a hell of a lot of fun playing and it was refreshing to hear someone play South Side of the Sky, something I never hear Yes do. These bands play in San Diego, California and sometimes in Los Angeles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Bryce Posted February 10, 2001 Share Posted February 10, 2001 Originally posted by joegerardi: In the 70's I was in a band that was sort of an ELP tribute band. We did one set of Yes, one set of Genesis, and one set of ELP. Whist yes, you might think that it is tough work, and it is, it was also a keyboard players dream gig. It was also probably the shortest set list you've ever seen. For the ELP set we played a total of 4 songs - Hoedown, Tarkus, KE9 2nd half of the 1st, and the second side of Pictures. It was the last set of the night ands we would encore with Blues Variation.. How cool. I played in that sort of a band in the '70s, too, but we did next to no ELP, unfortunately....the guitar player didn't dig it. We did a ton of Genesis, Yes and...Jeff Beck. Our big source of pride was that we finished our last set with all of side four of Seconds Out - only one drummer though... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/frown.gif. Prog rock was way big in Philly, and people dug it to bits. Our weak point was definitely our singer (a bad singer trying to handle Yours Is No Disgrace is a pretty ugly thing), but the rest of us were real into it and learned the parts pretty accurately - it was really a lot of fun, and very educational to try and figure out how those guys did this stuff. I still love to play many of those songs on the piano - especially One For The Vine. It makes a pretty fun solo acoustic tune. Thanks for dredging up the memory... dB ==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <== Professional Affiliations: Royer Labs • Music Player Network Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbrock1san.rr.com Posted February 10, 2001 Author Share Posted February 10, 2001 One for the Vine....Tony Banks' finest compostion. Too bad he started to move away from the piano after that. Many Too Many is a song I play solo all the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joegerardi Posted February 10, 2001 Share Posted February 10, 2001 Originally posted by Dave Bryce: Prog rock was way big in Philly, and people dug it to bits. Our weak point was definitely our singer (a bad singer trying to handle Yours Is No Disgrace is a pretty ugly thing), but the rest of us were real into it and learned the parts pretty accurately - it was really a lot of fun, and very educational to try and figure out how those guys did this stuff. We were lucky in that drummer handled the Yes vocals, (quite well, too. I was constanlty amazed that he could sing and play Bruford/White drum lines at the same time) and the guitarist handled the Genesis and ELP vocals. This kept him onstage for the ELP section of the gig. Plus, he was able to handle the few guitar leads that Greg Lake did, allowing the bassist to cover some of the left-hand synth bass that Emo did when Greg switched to lead. It made my night a little easier and I was thankful for that. Ah, the good old days of rock. You could do Progressive Rock and still pick up girls! Setup: Korg Kronos 61, Roland XV-88, Korg Triton-Rack, Motif-Rack, Korg N1r, Alesis QSR, Roland M-GS64 Yamaha KX-88, KX76, Roland Super-JX, E-Mu Longboard 61, Kawai K1II, Kawai K4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
synthfoolsynthfool.com Posted February 10, 2001 Share Posted February 10, 2001 Ah, the good old days of rock. You could do Progressive Rock and still pick up girls! Then why did people point at you and say "Wot Gorilla?" ;-) K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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