Keith Emerson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer Keyboardist, Dead at 71

[hollowdweller]

23. July 4, 1977

I was 17 and my friends and I got tickets to the ELP show at the Charleston Civic Center in Charleston WV.

We didn't know much about them other than a few tunes.

Back then soon as the lights went down everybody lit up. We had saved this massive bowl of Jamaican trip weed we had.

By the time we finished it we were blasted, refusing joints offered by our neighbors we were so stoned.

They came on and killed it. The sound was clear, the music bombastic and the stage show impressive. In our suggestible state we were eating it up.

Emerson did a big solo and his organ, appearing on fire due to smoke and orange lights sunk into the stage thru a trapdoor.

There were 2 props covered by tarps on the speakers.

During "Pirates" the tarps were yanked revealing 2 deck guns that went off with tons of smoke and fire. In our stoned state this woke us up!

Good times!