An exhibition in ten places · 1970 to 2010
Promenade: standing at No. 1, Keith Emerson on stage, October 1971.
Mussorgsky wrote Pictures at an Exhibition in 1874, in ten numbers with a recurring Promenade, after a memorial exhibition of Viktor Hartmann’s pictures at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St Petersburg. The Promenades are not pictures: they are the visitor walking between them. This World walks it twice, as he hung it and as ELP played it.
23 to 29 August 1970 · two gigs
They called themselves Emerson, Lake & Palmer so that no one would hear them as the new Nice; Triton, Triumvirate and Seahorse were also in the running. Before the first gig they spent £9,000 on a sound mixer and £4,000 on a Moog modular synthesiser imported from America.
23 August 1970 · No. 1
The trio’s first gig was here on 23 August 1970, with a local band, Earth, in support. They drove down in a transit van that had belonged to Yes, and were paid about £400.
They chose a small hall outside London on purpose, in case the night went wrong. It went well. The Guildhall was burnt to a shell in the Plymouth Blitz in March 1941 and reopened in 1959.
In Plymouth city centre: see the front and the tower from Guildhall Square.
29 August 1970 · No. 2
The 1970 festival ran from 26 to 31 August on the small hill of Afton Down, near Freshwater. ELP played their second gig here on 29 August 1970, to an audience estimated at 600,000.
At the end of “Pictures at an Exhibition” they fired two cannons, which Emerson had tested in a field near Heathrow Airport. The set drew wide attention from the public and the music press.
The 1970 festival field is farmland below Afton Down: look from the down and the road above Freshwater Bay.
Isle of Wight
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Compare toursFitzrovia and Fulham · 1970 to 1973
Palmer’s catalogue dates the first album’s sessions here to July to September 1970; Lake produced and Eddy Offord engineered. They came back in January 1971 and made Tarkus in six days; the 20-minute title track took four of them.
Advision moved into 23 Gosfield Street in 1969. The building had been the All Souls National Girls and Infants School. Trilogy was made here with Offord between October 1971 and January 1972. Work on Brain Salad Surgery moved here in August 1973; “Jerusalem”, recorded here, used a prototype polyphonic Moog, the Apollo.
A working studio now, not open to visit. See the old school building from Gosfield Street.
January 1973 · Fulham
Around January 1973 the three and their manager, Stewart Young, bought an abandoned ABC cinema in Fulham. They made it their rehearsal room and company headquarters; it later took the name of their label, Manticore, launched in March 1973.
In the cinema they could play, write and play again, and the new music took on the feeling of addressing an audience. The manticore first appeared in the Tarkus artwork, as one of the creature’s adversaries.
No source we read gives the cinema’s address, so it is named here and not mapped. Pictured: North End Road, Fulham.
The signature · Newcastle City Hall, 26 March 1971
Choose whose walk, then step from picture to picture.
Emerson had heard the suite played by an orchestra years before, and bought the score. ELP’s arrangement used four of Mussorgsky’s ten pictures, with the Promenades and new sections of their own.
Stop 1 of 11: Promenade. Emerson alone on the hall’s 1928 pipe organ, high above the stage; Palmer’s drum roll covers his walk back down.
Mussorgsky’s pictures passed by so far: 0.
Where the suite was played
Pictures at an Exhibition was recorded here on 26 March 1971; one paragraph of Palmer’s catalogue says 21 March. Emerson picked the hall partly for its pipe organ, a Harrison & Harrison put in when the hall opened in 1928.
He played the opening Promenade on it. The console sits high above the stage at the top of the choir terraces, so Palmer’s drum roll gave him time to get back to his keyboards.
Still a concert hall: go to a show.
Atlantic would not release the album at first; it came out in the UK in November 1971 and in the US in January 1972, after WNEW-FM in New York played the whole record.
1974 and 1977 · arenas
The Works tours ran from May 1977 to February 1978, more than 120 dates in North America.
Montreal, 26 August 1977: 3 players with 64 more and a choir. And once more at the Olympic Stadium, for an estimated 78,000 people.
2 February 1974
Palmer’s catalogue gives 2 February 1974 as the concert recorded here for Welcome Back, My Friends. The live album came out in August 1974 as a triple LP and reached No. 5 in the UK and No. 4 in the US. That tour carried almost 40 tons of equipment across North America and Europe.
A working convention centre across Katella Avenue from the Disneyland Resort; it opens for its events.
26 August 1977
Palmer’s catalogue dates the recording here to 26 August 1977; it became In Concert in 1979 and, expanded, Works Live in 1993. An estimated 78,000 people came, the largest crowd at any concert of ELP’s own.
In Olympic Park, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve: the stadium still hosts concerts and events.
Montreal
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1992 and 2010 · London
3 October 1992
Back together on the Black Moon tour, they played their first shows in England since 1974 here. Palmer’s catalogue dates the live album to 3 October 1992. The concerts went out on BBC radio and were released in 1993 as Live at the Royal Albert Hall.
A working concert hall across the road from Kensington Gardens; book a show to go in.
25 July 2010
For their 40th anniversary the three played one more concert, headlining the High Voltage Festival here on 25 July 2010. It was their final performance together, and it was recorded and filmed.
A public park: walk in from any gate.
Kensington High Street, London
A five-star hotel on Kensington High Street beside Kensington Gardens, a short walk from the Royal Albert Hall.
Check rooms
9 places you can visit. Afton Down’s pin marks the down above the old festival field; Advision’s marks its Gosfield Street building; the Fulham cinema has no published address and is not mapped.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. In Plymouth city centre: see the front and the tower from Guildhall Square.
General reference · Restricted access · Coordinate precision: site · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The 1970 festival field is farmland below Afton Down: look from the down and the road above Freshwater Bay.
General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Still a concert hall: go to a show.
Guildhall Square, Plymouth
The trio’s first gig was here on 23 August 1970, with a local band, Earth, in support.
In Plymouth city centre: see the front and the tower from Guildhall Square.
Afton Down, near Freshwater, Isle of Wight
The 1970 festival ran from 26 to 31 August on the small hill of Afton Down, near Freshwater.
The 1970 festival field is farmland below Afton Down: look from the down and the road above Freshwater Bay.
Northumberland Road, Newcastle upon Tyne
Pictures at an Exhibition was recorded here on 26 March 1971; one paragraph of Palmer’s catalogue says 21 March.
Still a concert hall: go to a show.
Stay
A hotel on Kensington High Street, a short walk from the Albert Hall.
Kensington High Street, London
A five-star hotel on Kensington High Street beside Kensington Gardens, a short walk from the Royal Albert Hall.
Check roomsGo there
Albert Hall tours, the Isle of Wight and Montreal’s Olympic Park, on the marketplace.
South Kensington
Live marketplace results for guided tours of the Royal Albert Hall, where the reunited trio played in October 1992. Check each listing for what it includes.
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Compare toursIsle of Wight
Live marketplace results for tours of the Isle of Wight. Afton Down is above Freshwater Bay on the west of the island; check each itinerary.
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Compare toursMontreal
Live marketplace results for Olympic Park and stadium tours in Montreal, where ELP played with orchestra and choir in August 1977.
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Compare toursWhat’s on
There is no Emerson, Lake & Palmer show on or after today. The halls publish their own listings.
No current dated events are listed. Check providers for the latest programme.
Take it home
Emerson’s autobiography, and four records from 1970 to 1979.
Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson’s autobiography. John Blake, 2004.
Find the bookEmerson, Lake & Palmer · LP, Island, 1970
The first album, made at Advision in the summer of 1970.
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Find a copyEmerson, Lake & Palmer · LP, Island, 1971
Recorded at Newcastle City Hall, March 1971.
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Find a copyEmerson, Lake & Palmer · 3LP, Manticore, 1974
The triple live album from Anaheim.
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Find a copyEmerson, Lake & Palmer · CD, Atlantic, 1989
The Montreal concert with orchestra, first issued in 1979.
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Find a copyDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
10 of 10 places · 12 of 12 Moments
Guildhall Square, Plymouth
Emerson, Lake & Palmer play their first gig, at Plymouth Guildhall.
Afton Down, near Freshwater, Isle of Wight
Their second gig, at the Isle of Wight Festival, ends “Pictures at an Exhibition” with two cannons.
23 Gosfield Street, Fitzrovia, London W1
The first album is made at Advision, Lake producing and Eddy Offord engineering.
Tarkus is recorded at Advision in six days.
Work on Brain Salad Surgery moves from Olympic to Advision.
Wellington Street, off the Strand, London WC2
The Lyceum show is filmed; the band are unhappy with it and decide to record Pictures again.
Northumberland Road, Newcastle upon Tyne
Pictures at an Exhibition is recorded live at Newcastle City Hall, opening on the hall’s pipe organ.
Fulham, west London
The band and their manager buy an abandoned cinema in Fulham as a rehearsal room and headquarters.
800 West Katella Avenue, Anaheim, California
The Anaheim show is recorded for the triple live album Welcome Back, My Friends.
4545 Avenue Pierre-De Coubertin, Montreal
About 78,000 people see ELP with orchestra and choir at the Olympic Stadium; it becomes In Concert.
Kensington Gore, South Kensington
The reunited trio play the Royal Albert Hall on the Black Moon tour.
Victoria Park, between Hackney and Bow
A 40th-anniversary concert at the High Voltage Festival is their last.
