Lucky Man

by Greg Lake

  So there we were, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, about to embark on the trip of a lifetime to perform in a country which for us back then still conjured up images of samurai warlords, the Second World War and the atomic bomb. I’m not sure that any of us really knew what to expect from Japan, but I am sure we had a suspicion we would receive a warm welcome if only because we had been booked to perform in huge stadium venues.

  Ever since the very early days, ELP’s stage production was relatively large in scale, and since we wanted to make sure that the shows in Japan were every bit as good as any we played in the rest of the world, we insisted on taking all of our own equipment. This, of course, proved to be extremely expensive.

  At the time, someone made a joke about the fact that it would probably be cheaper to buy our own aeroplane rather than fly everything there by commercial airlines. A few days later, some bright spark in the office managed to organise a deal with JAL for us to charter our own jet that would take the whole show there and back, and so luckily this resolved the problem. There would only be a dozen or so people on board – the band, management and some of the crew – but the plane would be far from empty: we were transporting about seven or eight tons of equipment.

  On the day we departed from Heathrow, I remember going out to the plane and photographs being taken on the aeroplane steps. The Sunday Telegraph had appointed a journalist, Alexander Frater, who became a leading travel writer, to accompany us for the entire Japanese tour. It was a strange feeling when we eventually got inside this huge plane to be the only passengers on board. It must also have been the first time any of us had any close contact with real Japanese culture.

  I was immediately struck by the appearance of the Japanese air stewardesses and by the delicate and very ornamental food they served, which was very different from the type of food we were used to back home. Now, of course, there are Japanese restaurants and sushi bars in just about every city on the planet, but back then none of us had ever experienced Japanese cuisine in any shape or form, so it was all very new and exciting.

  Due to the length of the flight, the plane was forced to stop off in Alaska on the way over to Japan for refuelling. Upon arrival in Alaska, we all took the chance to stretch our legs and take a bit of a walk around the airport terminal, and I was awestruck at suddenly being confronted by a massive stuffed polar bear that was standing right in the middle of the departure lounge. This bear stood well over seven feet tall and it was immediately apparent to me how little chance anyone would stand if they were attacked by such an immensely powerful animal.

  After reboarding, we continued on with the flight and eventually reached our destination, Narita International Airport in Tokyo. After clearing Japanese customs and its scrupulously efficient and overly suspicious officers, we were eventually escorted towards the arrivals lounge.

  As the two large, frosted-glass doors parted, we were completely shocked by the deafening screams and pandemonium that instantly erupted among the hundreds of fans that had gathered there, waiting for us to emerge. In order to reach the waiting cars, we realised that we would need to somehow make our way through the frenzied crowd and that this was fast developing into a potentially dangerous situation.

  Three or four people from the local promoter’s office suddenly appeared out of the crowd and assured us that if we all stuck together everything would be okay. They then proceeded to link their arms in ours and attempted to frogmarch us through the crowd towards the exit doors.

  Almost immediately I could feel my hair being pulled and people tearing at my clothes, and for a moment the situation became really quite unnerving. Keith had a silver bracelet snatched from his wrist during the mayhem, and I think he lost a ring as well. It was not a pleasant experience. Eventually the police waded in and managed to hold back the crowd long enough for us to reach the waiting cars and we sped off to the hotel.

  On the first night in Tokyo, we didn’t get much sleep at all due to the screaming girls that were camped en masse in the street outside the hotel. On the following day, the police erected barriers across the road and we were moved to rooms at the rear of the hotel, where at last we managed to get the rest we so badly needed after the long-haul flight. For the next couple of days, we did quite a lot of tourist stuff, sightseeing and visiting temples, as well as doing some press interviews, which was great because it gave us the chance to recover from the brutal time change.

  Our first concert in Japan was at Kourakuen Kyujyo Suidoubashi, a sports stadium in Tokyo, on Saturday 22 July 1972.

  The day of the show had at last arrived and the whole event seemed to be charged with an almost unbearably high level of expectation. In my experience, at a moment like that, while everything in your own mind is telling you to remain calm and just play the best show you possibly can, at the same time every hand you shake and your own is trembling, and everyone around you is basically on the verge of panicking, not least of all the police.

  Although the stadium had witnessed capacity audiences for sporting events such as baseball, the organisers and the police were now being confronted by an entirely different level of crowd enthusiasm, which even at the beginning had the potential to slip out of control very quickly.

  The day before the show, we had a production meeting in the hotel to discuss set lists and all of the other elements involved in the performance, and Keith pulled out this huge samurai sword from behind his back and laughed like hell. We realised in an instant what he had in mind. By that point, Keith was well known for pulling out a pair of daggers during our performances of ‘Rondo’, and it had become something of a trademark crowd pleaser. This time, however, instead of the daggers the Japanese Samurai sword would be drawn in their place. Not only was this a cool idea, but it was also a great way for us to pay our own small tribute to Japanese culture. We were quite sure that the Japanese audience would enjoy that little twist.

  The next day, on the drive from the hotel, everyone in the car was extremely quiet and, as we approached the outer ring road of the stadium, we could already hear the noise of the audience from inside. As the cars entered the stadium through the tunnels, the audience noise became so deafening we could not even hear ourselves think. The cars eventually pulled up at the rear of the stage, which had been erected at the dead centre of the baseball field. We all jumped out of the cars and proceeded directly up on to the stage where we stood waiting in the wings for the word go.

  Tokyo was extremely humid, and even at night the temperatures remained very high, which added to the intense atmosphere.

  As we stood waiting in the wings we all got dressed into three perfectly matching white silk kimonos, embroidered with our individual names across the back of each one.

  At last, the moment had arrived, the spotlights fired up and, as we walked out on stage, we heard a Japanese voice over the PA calling our names, which caused what I can only describe as an earth-shaking reception. The Japanese character is usually portrayed as polite and restrained, but we were seeing a whole other side.

  The noise level was simply stupendous as we stood there with our backs to the audience proudly displaying our names across the back of our kimonos.

  After a few seconds, we quickly went backstage, dropped off the kimonos, picked up our instruments and started to play.

  At some point during the show, it started to rain, quite gently at first but then getting worse and worse right up until the end of the show, by which time it had transformed itself into a mini typhoon. It didn’t seem to dampen the crowd’s enthusiasm. Everything we played that night brought about an instant standing ovation.

  The last thing I can remember from the concert is the incredible noise that went up when Keith pulled out the samurai sword and stuck it into the keys of his Hammond organ. Somehow he had managed to get the sword to remain wedged in between the keys and it swayed back and forth as the organ wailed away in agony and the typhoon raged. Quite a poetic scene.

  After the show, we were taken to this extraordinary
fish restaurant for dinner and it was really quite unlike anything we had ever seen before. The restaurant was situated down by the harbour front and was set up under canvas in the open air. Although the storm had passed, the wind was still quite strong and blew the hanging light bulbs back and forth as the smoke from the chefs’ fires swirled all around.

  We were all sitting at a wooden bar that surrounded a very large square marble structure that rose up in the middle to form a sort of pyramid. It rather resembled a gigantic version of one of those fish display counters you sometimes get at very high-end supermarkets. Every type of fish and crustacean imaginable was out on display to form this spectacular centrepiece for everyone to admire and eventually make their selection from.

  Right at the very top of this marble pyramid structure sat three chefs, appropriately dressed in kimonos and matching white bandanas. Each of the chefs cooked over his own charcoal fire and was equipped with a wooden paddle. When a customer selected a fish, the chef would use the paddle to reach down and deftly pick up the fish and retrieve it for preparation. He would then skilfully gut and wash the fish before skewering it, salting it and finally roasting it over the glowing embers.

  When the fish was finally ready to eat, the chef would place it back on the wooden paddle and slide it right onto the awaiting plate in front of the customer.

  I can still call to mind the scene now, watching the light bulbs dance in the swirling smoke while the smell of ocean-fresh fish roasted over charcoal permeated the warm sea air.

  Sunday 23 July was a day off and we once again enjoyed the unusual sights of what to us was such a strange culture, visiting shrines and doing a little shopping as well. The two things that everybody seemed to be interested in at the time were the newly emerging Sony hi-fi products and the wonderful Japanese cultured pearls.

  The concert on Monday 24 July at the Koshien Stadium, another baseball park, this time in the city of Osaka, was to be another one of those life-changing experiences that no one ever expects to happen. Apart from the sheer scale of the event, just the fact of being where we were at that moment in time was an unbelievable privilege for people like ourselves who, without the blessing of music, would probably never have travelled far beyond the perimeters of our own home towns. And yet here we were, making our way to perform at another one of Japan’s great sporting stadiums.

  The run-up to the event was pretty much scripted in the same way as it had been in Tokyo. The cars drove into the stadium, right on to the pitch, and we climbed on the stage and started to play. The audience reaction in Osaka seemed even more extraordinary – every song that we played just drove the audience to a higher pitch of frenzy – but the crowd were being held back some way from the stage.

  As we came towards the end of the show, I could see some of the fences starting to give way and people were beginning to run on to the field to get closer to us. At first, the riot police were able to hold them back and control the situation, but after a while more and more people broke through until it became an avalanche of bodies just pouring all over the pitch and heading towards the stage.

  As all of this started to take place, Keith and I left the stage while Carl was beginning his drum solo in ‘Rondo’. Suddenly I was grabbed by one of the police guards, dragged down the stairs and bundled into a police car waiting behind the stage. Keith followed a few seconds later and the car sped off across the field, heading for the exit tunnel. God only knows what would have happened if the crowd had reached the vehicles before we reached the tunnel. It hardly bears thinking about.

  Within a few seconds, we were driving around the perimeter of the stadium, thinking that Carl had got out as well. However, we suddenly realised that we could hear Carl’s drums thrashing away: he was still playing his drum solo inside the stadium. He was obviously unaware that we had departed and the last thing we heard was his cue for us to come back on being played over and over again.

  There’s a funny account of this in Keith’s autobiography, in which he describes us winding down the car windows when we were two miles down the freeway, and I said, ‘You know he’s a fucking good drummer. Listen to that! No PA, we’re two miles away and you can still hear the fucker!’

  Later on, we were relaxing in a Jacuzzi, but Carl still hadn’t turned up. I wondered what had happened to him.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Keith. ‘He’s probably just about to take his T-shirt off during the gong-smashing bit.’

  Another hour later, we were still relaxing when Carl threw open the doors.

  ‘You bastards! I kept giving the cue for you to come back on and here you are frothing away in . . . in a fuckin’ Jacuzzi!’

  There is no question about the fact that these two shows created a historic landmark in the career of ELP. It’s a shame that we never went back to Japan when we were in our prime. It was probably time constraints and the enormous costs of getting our equipment there and back that stopped us returning as a band in the 1970s.

  A few days after the show in Osaka, we all flew back to the United States to embark on our fourth tour of the country, kicking off in California on 27 July 1972 at the Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, and then continuing right throughout the States until the end of August. The Far East had its effect on Keith and Carl – Keith was wearing a red kimono and Carl was in a karate outfit.

  After a short summer break, we then embarked on another tour of the UK, the highlight of which was undoubtedly our performance at the Oval cricket ground in London on 30 September 1972 to thank all of our dedicated UK fans for our recent Melody Maker poll awards success. We had won seven awards – everything from top group to top composers, with Carl winning best drummer, Keith winning best keyboardist and me taking home the best producer award.

  Playing the Oval was quite a strange experience because this iconic venue has always been associated with the very English game of cricket and in particular the ‘Ashes’ against Australia. It is rather as if a band today were to suddenly turn up and perform a concert at Wimbledon’s Centre Court. Anyway, play it we did to a crowd of 18,000 people, with Genesis and Wishbone Ash among the support acts. We had our two huge armadillo tanks, inspired by the cover of Tarkus, roaring and belching smoke at the sides of the stage, and played ‘Tarkus’, ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, ‘Hoedown’ and ‘Lucky Man’ among others.

  The MC/announcer that night was a man who later became a great friend: Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman, the top Radio 1 disc jockey who over the years became a British institution. Apart from being a big fan of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Alan was also a walking encyclopaedia on the subject of opera. It was Alan who first opened my eyes to that wonderful art form.

  CHAPTER 10

  Salad Days

  The year 1972 was undoubtedly a landmark for ELP – it was one the most creative and positive periods in the band’s entire history. We had come of age musically and had also managed to establish our presence at the very cutting edge of the emerging music technology.

  After the success of Trilogy and all of the accolades the band had received during that period, we began to realise, perhaps for the first time, that there was a slight sense of having a reputation to live up to and, of course, having to face up to that same old question, ‘Are you going to be as good as your last hit record?’

  For a while, Keith was talking about doing his own solo project but his enthusiasm waned and he was still committed to the band. Perhaps the only dark cloud on the horizon was the realisation that in future we would need to be more careful about the amount of overdubbing we did on our records. Although we had a great deal of confidence in our own writing and creative abilities, no matter how good we were as a live band, the whole Trilogy album remained extremely difficult to replicate in a live performance.

  We had come to realise that, unless we intended carrying around a whole team of backing musicians to replicate all of the parts on a record, we had to change our recording techniques. It may sound obvious to anyone reading this now, but at the time multi-track re
cording was pretty much uncharted territory.

  In the end, we came to the conclusion that if we wanted to maintain our basic, three-piece band identity, it was essential for us to be able to perform the next album live first rather than trying to figure out how to perform it all after the record had been made.

  Somehow we needed to set up a situation whereby we could fully perform and demo the album live before moving into the studio. The more I thought about this whole idea of live performance, the more I began to realise that the whole essence of this record could revolve around the concept of a theatrical performance.

  At around the same time, we formed our own record label called Manticore Records, which was named after the mythical beast that had also inspired the ‘Manticore’ section of ‘Tarkus’. A manticore is often depicted with a human head, the body of a lion and a scorpion’s tale – both Keith and I were born under Scorpio. The idea behind the label was not only for us to better control the production and distribution of our own records, but at the same time to also help other non-mainstream artists (just as we had been helped ourselves in previous years) to get a foot through the door. I liked working with other bands. By then I had already helped to produce Spontaneous Combustion’s debut record, and we signed Stray Dog and a few other bands – including Premiata Forneria Marconi and Banco, two of the biggest acts in Italy – to Manticore Records. The truth was, though, that ELP took up almost all of our time so Manticore Records only lasted a few years.

  To solve our recording issues and to push forward the broader Manticore concept – and I know this sounds horribly extravagant – we decided to buy a cinema in Fulham and convert it into a rehearsal and recording facility, which Led Zeppelin and Bad Company went on to use. We set up on the stage when we wrote our next album, and that is where the early rehearsals for Brain Salad Surgery took place.