They were unknown to the crowd, because they had only played their first concert a few days before. But they were given a prominent billing because they were considered a "supergroup" of sorts, coming from well regarded groups such as the Nice and King Crimson. Only after this concert did the band secure a record contract.
ELP singer Greg Lake later recalled about the festival, "The enduring memory is the actual physical sight of that many people. I suppose before that, the only other time you’d see that many people gathered together would have been a war. The night before, we’d played to something like 1,000 people. The next day it was 600,000."
Lake had mixed feelings about the festival as a whole: "There was a kind of random chaos taking place. In a way, it was all meant to be relaxed and 'peace, love, and have a nice day', but there was kind of a tension about the whole thing." However, the band's performance was received very well. "After that festival, the very next day, ELP was on the front page of every music newspaper. It was indeed one of those overnight sensations."
The bad did have one problematic moment, however. Lake recalled, "We decided to fire these 19th-century cannons at the end of 'Pictures At An Exhibition' – to emulate the 1812 Overture. Unknown to us, the road crew had doubled the charge in the cannons. All I can remember was seeing this huge, solid-iron cannon leave the ground! It blew a couple of people off the stage. Luckily there was no cannonball in it. Thank God!"
The set is complete, and it sounds great, because it was officially released as "Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970" in 1997.
Tracks 73 to 83 make up a musical suite called "Pictures at an Exhibition," based on a 1894 piano suite by the same name by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Despite being played in concert from this time forward, ELP wouldn't release an album version of it until late 1971.
This album is an hour and nine minutes long.
068 talk (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
070 talk (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
069 The Barbarian [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
071 Take a Pebble (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
072 talk (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
073 Promenade [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
074 The Gnome [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
075 Promenade (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
076 The Sage (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
077 The Old Castle [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
078 Blues Variations [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
080 The Hut of Baba Yaga [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
079 Promenade [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
081 The Curse of Baba Yaga (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
082 The Hut of Baba Yaga [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
083 The Great Gates of Kiev (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
084 Rondo [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
085 talk (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
086 Nut Rocker [Instrumental] (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
The cover photo comes from this exact concert.
Thanks for sharing this one! A poster on another site said this this was only the second public performance of ELP, and this performance led to their recording contract.
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