Greg Lake takes fans inside one of Emerson Lake and Palmer’s most spectacular 1970s-era concert stunts — when Keith Emerson would rise above the crowd playing a grand piano and turn 360 degrees.
“It was a Steinway piano,” Lake remembers, in the attached video. “It was a fake one, I have to admit now. It had no insides in it. But the idea was that Keith would sit in it; he would be strapped in. There would be a lot of smoke, and the piano would start to rise up into the air — and it would get about 15, 20 feet in the air, and then it would start to spin. With him on it!”
The effect didn’t appear as part of Emerson Lake and Palmer’s stage show for very long, owing to its complicated nature — and a string of injuries to Emerson.
“He’d be playing while all of this was going on,” Lake says. “You had this spinning piano, and there would be more smoke and more smoke until the piano was spinning in smoke — and then there’d be a huge explosion, and it would disappear. Now, I can’t tell you how it was made to disappear. (Laughs.) But that’s what happened.”
As for the mishaps, Emerson has said he once broke his nose on the piano, as it rotated. Countless finger injuries followed, as well.
“There was a few times that Keith actually hurt himself doing it,” Lake admits. “So, we had to stop it. But for a while it was very impressive.”
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I have very good memories of seeing ELP perform in the old Cleveland. Ohio stadium. The show was to support the Brain Salad Surgery album. The sound set up was just amazing!! There were times I felt like I was in the middle of a tornado. Also I was really surprised Mr. Emerson did not end up killing himself. You called it a spinning grand piano, it looked more like a whirling dervish of Death.. I am surprised he survived that tour. Other effects was the portable keyboard with a shoulder sling. He played during Tarkus that fired roman candle stars in sync with the music of course. I also remember a keyboard he was playing, I don’t remember the song and, I hope somebody else has seen this as well.. Mr. Emerson knocked the keyboard over, he was beating on it and as some point he climbed into the base, the keyboard tipped onto one corner and started spinning, this was not the grand piano it was on a separate stage off to one side. Anyway the thing stopped spinning fell over and out pops Mr. Emerson. Like I said I hope someone else remembers this or I was really, really stoned. The last effect I remember was it must have been the tours aircraft, large jet airplane it over flew the stadium it was so damn low I could not see both wingtips. The belly of the airplane was covered with lights flashing all kinds of geometric shapes. COME AND SEE THE SHOW INDEED!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The keyboard you are talking about is probably his Hammond L100. He was famous for abusing that thing. Rocking it, dumping it over, sticking knives in the keyboard, and playing while upside and backward while he lay under it. I was at that show. That was part of the World Series of Rock at the old Municipal Stadium. I remember the roman candle stunt. That was using a rigged up Moog ribbon controller wired into the massive Moog Synthesizer. I don’t remember the jet buzzing the stadium. I know a few years later Pink Floyd did that when the played the stadium when they toured with Animals. As I remember they got into trouble with the FAA for that stunt. Great concerts.
The keyboard that you are referring to that shot fireworks was Keith’s Moog ribbon controller, but it didn’t have a shoulder strap, he just held it. It had a cord running off it to the Moog rig he had.
The airplane flying over the crowd…you must be confusing that with Pink Floyd because ELP didn’t do that, but Floyd did do this in the track “On The Run”.
And Greg Lake is confusing Keith’s rotating piano and the explosion and smoke that he talked about, with the conclusion of Karn Evil 9 Third Impression, because there was no smoke featured during the few times ELP used the rotating piano
AFAIK, Keith Emerson still has that Hammond, and I know he had the original Moog – and they still work! ELP was and is a classic, pioneering, exploring, exquisite trio of remarkable artists!
Speaking of spinning and how on earth did he do that, one can’t forget Carl Palmer’s rotating FULL drum kit during the drum solo in Toccata – with electric drums (which hadn’t been technically invented yet), timpani, tubular bells
I had a feeling he wasn’t really playing it. At the Cal Jam you could tell when he was on the spinning piano and playing, that the music was recorded cause his hands wasn’t en sync with the music.
I worked for the owner of that piano. Greg is correct that it was just a shell. It only went up to 15 feet to give whoever was strapped in would not hit their head. It was owned by FX Master Bob McCarthy of NYC. I worked for him and did a show in Maryland with Earth Wind and Fire along with a flying rig for Verdeen the bass play that shot him on a cable 20 feet up. This was before the wireless days 🙂