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From: PLANx
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  • He is a master of keys..Love to see him and wakeman go at it..I also love Ray Manzarcek,,Before his time i think??Peaceout

  • Jebus!!! he's like a mad scientist on the keyboard!

  • Typically fans look up to guitarists and down on keyboardists but people like Emerson and Wakeman are as cool as Page and Van Halen.

  • Aha playing it 'Bachwards' I see!

  • I pity his keyboard technician, venturing out into the nether land for tubes and wires and reefer.

  • 21 people work at Hammond factory.

  • great just listend to keith emerson in garage with nice great record

  • hes breaking the hammond..

  • simply the best

  • If tattoos were popular back then I'd probably still be wearing an ELP tattoo...:)

  • A real showman from the rock era!!!

  • AMAZING !!!

  • has to be the best organist wver

  • @aldisk56 I think the guy from Deep Purple.

  • @usergently Emerson was more advanced technically, but I think Jon Lord from Deep Purple plays with a lot more soul and passion. He was also far more influential in rock music, probably because people could actually copy his style. But I'm pretty sure Emerson was better technically.

  • @JanEgbersNL Good point. Peace out.

  • @usergently - And I think Steve Winwood and Booker T too....

  • Brilliant but g€ y

  • Exelente. Keith Emerson em plena forma. Power trio prog perfeito!

    E.L.P Brasil

  • he made that organ his bitch

  • it`s just too easy for him, so he got to be mad ... :D

  • @Papahitas, you're retarded.

    @mjsmcd, very.

  • not a keyboardist but how difficult to play backward ?

  • @mjsmcd depends on how difficult it is to sing backwards

  • @mjsmcd About the same as playing it forward. The key is aligning the sheet music correctly in the mirror.

  • BACHwards!!!

  • There is a man in control of his instrument...a true master, and of course a picture of an exhibitisionist!

  • Check on the Farfisa. I owned a Deluxe and it had no 5th, 9th or 11th- and no rheostats. You must be thinking of Ray Manzerak. (He switched from a Vox organ to a Farfisa Combo Compact Deluxe in hopes of being able to use the Farfisa special Split Bass setup. (That Fender keyboard Bass was heavy and bulky). Emerson relied on a Yamaha GX-1, a Grand Piano, a Hammond L-100 and sometimes the Moog MK-3).

  • @olliek1961 It is a Hammond L-100 organ.

  • If you've seen the clips where he pulls the organ right down onto himself as he lies on the stage and then pushes it back up, and you've ever tried to lift a Hammond, you'll know why you wouldn't want to arm-wrestle Keith Emerson.

  • @gordonjcp

    What does that have to do with music?

    I wonder if Bach arm wrestled his Clavier?

  • @Easleytee: Just call it "Pecial Music Live Performance" ;-)

  • To those who said he's playing a Farfisa. It's not. Hammond and Farfisa are two different companies. He's playing a Hammond L-100. The L series have the characteristic diving board tabs. If you watch videos from the Pictures at an Exhibition concert, You'll see he has a Hammond L-100 on one side and a Hammond C3 on the other.

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  • What an absolute maniac!! Like Hendrix on the organ!!!

  • techno anno'71 ;)

  • finally, so much energy coming from a guy behind the keyboard. Keith Emerson, you are the best!

  • its hammond farfisa compact right?

  • Turning the B-3 on and off while holding a key....Bouncing the spring reverb around....he got tones no one else ever thought of.

  • who cares just watch and learn

  • Sounds like Deep Purple - Mandrake Root-ish.

  • @Eldryzif you're right. and also like Space Tracking second part...

  • ob rückwärts oder vorwärts: EGAL! Wahnsinnig gut und das seit 40 Jahren! Habe ELP letztes Jahr in London gesehen und kann nur hoffen, daß mir dies Glück erneut zuteil wird! Auf meiner Beerdigung wär gut!

  • OMFG!!! THAT GUY IS GONNA BREAK THAT POOR ORGAN!!! i wonder how long it lasted after that concert or gig watever it was

  • @organmastr

    heh. check this one out where he brings all his tools to work! --> /watch?v=xggFzkyd288

  • It's a shame that neither ELP or the Nice are in the Rock and Roll hall of fame..

    However that B3 is. After almost 40 yrs of being stabbed, rocked, flung, tipped up and dropped, played from the inside, been jumped over thousands of times, played backwards ( as well as this piece, I've seen him do Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and Flight of the Bumblebees.), and having KE crouch on top of it to play,

    it caught fire on stage and died. Now it's in the Hall of Fame.

  • @miskatonic763 I can ashure, thats not a B3, the organ he is abusing is a not even Hammond-made although the sound is similar. But actually it´s an old Farfisa!

  • 0:00 Free repeat knob :-)

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  • Keith got a job moving furniture with United Van lines.

    He was fired on his second day.....

  • My dad (an ELP lover in his youth) told me about this when I was very young, maybe 7 years old. Ever since then I have aspired to be the greatest at piano that I can possibly be, just to become a fraction of the awesome that Keith Emerson exhibits here. And here I am, taking piano in university. Amazing, isn't it?

  • craizyness..

  • bachwards

  • I saw ELP 6 or 7 times and they were the best of the "progressive" bands! Greg, Carl and Keith were top musicians above all else!

  • @billyconnearly they had the nice at fillmore east then renasaince with mike hawker thumping away at an electric grand piano then the doors then king crimson then elp

  • Well KE fan #1, perhaps you can tell us then why Keith thinks atonal and discordant "music" should appeal to the masses? Take his piano concerto for instance - a nice few bars, but the rest is pure NOISE! He has breathtaking technical ability - that's never been any doubt throughout his career - but if his fingers are making noise, what IS the point? I could hit keys at random (even though I'm a moderate "proper" player, as it happens) and say "Yeah man, it's improv, don't ya dig?" Codswallop!

  • @MrAttPatt

    A lot of modern classical music sounds like noise to most people. The reason is that our ears are used to consonanses and diatonic scales and everything else sounds wierd to us.

  • who cares ? minor league look at me crap.

  • @nootaramus ...and your recording career is going how well then ???

  • ^.^ oafml

  • Emerson is definitley one of the greatest organists in rock music, but for me, my personal favorite is Jon Lord from Deep Purple. Lord can play and orchestrate classical music, but his sense of being able to keep up with Ritchie Blackmores sense of rock riffs as well as his blues influences makes him more of an interesting player to me. my opinion only.

  • lmbo!!!!

  • lmbo!!!!

  • Planx: what concert, what liner notes, and is this an excerpt from a complete video?

    thanks, wordofgord

  • damn that mothafucka can play!!! i wanna learn hammond organ REEEAAALLLYYYYY BAAAAAAAADDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Pobre Johann Sebastian.

  • @gringochucha

    de hecho tocar una pieza hacia atras se llama espejo, y bach hacia mucho eso, si no revisa el arte de la fuga, tiene temas y variaciones en espejo, cangrejo, etc....

  • @TheMetalSoundSystem Pobre, pobre Johann Sebastian.

  • 3:00 tricky jump, huh

  • What rage! What liberty! His solos were so cathartic! To be able to so physically express his every whim or frustration... simply amazing. And the poor instrument! Thank god for field repairs.

  • One of rock's ultimate madmen!!!!!!

  • now who know if he is playing Bach backwards, sounds shit anyway

  • magor

    

  • Give a random monkey from the zoo some LSD, let him play an organ and he'll do the same.

  • I FUCKIN' LOVE IT !!!

  • What the name of original song?

  • @JaUhdeEsparta The excerpt of Bach is from the harpsichord solo from brandenburg concerto no. 5

  • @awaken77 It's the reverb spring. Same thing if you kick a guitar amp with a built-in reverb. Emerson also did a thing where he'd switch the organ off and on to get a really warped-vinyl sort of sound with the bending notes. And of course there were the knives in the keyboard!! What a showman!!

  • .taht od dluoc I hsiw I

  • i hate this guy, sorry

  • @jcracker you hate Keith Emerson?

  • @slashdelbarrio he's a huge showoff who can play a lot of notes at once. if you like that i guess you'll love keith emerson

  • @jcracker Envy is just so ugly...and sad.  Stop whining and start practicing!!

  • @smeg27 i dont think you get it. of course he's better than me. i just think his playing is a way to show off, with no real feeling.

  • @jcrackerHe's always been accused of that, but the thing is, he really CAN play that well, so why not add a bit of showmanship to it? (And why else do you think he titled his autobiography ""Pictures of an Exhibitionist""?) He certainly plays with as much 'feeling' as 99.9% of pop musicians out there, so it's not really a valid criticism as far as I'm concerned. Besides, the fact that he inspires enough feeling in you that you have to comment must mean he's doing something right!

  • @jcracker performers like Emerson can afford to demonstarte less feelings from time to time...

  • @jcracker It's not uncommon for people to hate those who are better than them and emerson was better than everyone in else in rock on keyboards.

  • @MerkinMuffly of course he's better than me. bernie worrell kicks his ass though.

  • miren este que tiene algo que verr youtube.com/watch?v=vZq74bS1H6­w

  • I'll have what he's having ;)

  • @TheJordanband Keith Emerson's The Buckethead Of Keyboards. If he band buckethead Were to start a band the fucking world would explode!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thumbs Up if u agree

  • This is the bollocks

  • Nothin' but pure soul.

  • Just kidding about the wardrobe malfunction. Keith had just come from an audition for the role of the sheriff of Nottingham in a community theater group's Robin Hood remake, and had no time to change his costume (apparently in the jolly old England of Robin Hood's time, they liked to make leather goods 10x bigger than needed, because King John found it visually amusing-strangely, narrow ties and lapels on sport coats were also in though).

  • Keith fell victim to a traumatic and tragic wardrobe malfunction in the early days, in which a flimsy belt broke and his pants fell down during a concert. To make sure that mortifying nightmare would never be repeated, from then on, he had all his belts custom made. The leather worker had permanent instructions to make each belt no less than a foot wide, just to be safe. Keith is now a favorite target of animal rights groups for his ravenous consumption of leather.

  • Gonna see Emerson and Lake TONIGHT in Colorado Springs. Can't wait.

  • bachwards! ;-)

    The Best!!

  • Saw Keith and Greg Lake last night in Phoenix, small setting, interesting stage setup, got to watch with Chris Squire from Yes, who agreed that they still have it! A couple of King Crimson and Nice tunes, plus a number of the faves, as well as experimental stuff. Outstanding show! Great solos, etc.

  • Excellent note 1000

  • Nice belt, Keith!

  • who is this asshole?

  • @13Azad

    It's Keith Emerson. He's, arguably, they best keyboard player alive.

  • @nickmorgan19457 i shoundn't say it but he is somehow better than wakeman and even possibly better than vangelis maybe? YES!

  • @nickmorgan19457

    Hmmm! Where've YOU been looking?

    Peterson, Tatum, Morton, Powell, Earle Heinz, Nat Cole, Teddy Wilson, .... Not in any particular order. Regiments of British guys, as well. I could go on but there ain't enough words available in this comment box and I don't think I'll live long enough anyway!

    I should renew your search if I were you. If you want the real answer, stop looking where you're looking now!

  • @g3nby

    I said keyboard player. Not piano player and not organist.

    And I've been looking in Keyboard Magazine where Emerson won the award for keyboard player of the year so many times that they retired his name to give other people a chance.

  • He definitely played a section of Tocatta and Fugue in D min backwards on a Yamaha Electone in the 1988 Atlantic Records concert. There's a partial video up called 'Keith Emerson and Carl palmer - Rondo Live@NYC' that does not include the section that I remember clearly watching.

  • Does anyone know if they still make Hammonds anymore? God i was born in the wrong generation!

  • @1994AlmostSkater actually they do, Hammond-Suzuki, but nowadays you can buy a Hammond clone which is indistinguishable from a real Hammond which only weighs 35 lbs. It is made by Clavia/Nord. One keyboard is the Nord Electro 3. Check it out~!

  • Hammond do make new, digital versions. They aren't that bad either - digital isn't necessarily a dirty word. In fact there aren't many true analog organs about, because they were mechanical and difficult to maintain. Check out the Nord Electro, Roland VK-7, 8, and 9, KORG CX-3 and BX-3, and of course the Hammond XK-1, 2, & 3

  • I would like to see Emerson on stage with Wakeman doing a yes elp mixed rock off! speakers would melt! YEAH

  • Keith is god. Wish he didn't have the problems in his hands. Hey, i've got tendonitis and I play drums! You work through the pain for what you love... OK so I'm drunk....

  • Kieth can blow Bach out of the water and play his shit backwords? YEAH! ELP ROCKS!

  • @drunksingsheep I got he book " Pictures of an ehibitionist" Biography of Keith Emerson. There is no point, that Emerson did study in Julian school of music. He claims, that he had private lessons by three different female teachers, who came to his parents home. When he formed "The Nice" he was long time ago professional musician.

    Before he played with "Gary Farr and the T Bones". A professional band. Then he played with the "VIPS" later Spooky Tooth. and toured through europe.

  • crazy

  • I'm the biggest Keith Emerson fan there is; I think the guy is the greatest keyboardist Rock's ever seen. However, I need to clear up the error that he's playing Bach Backward: from 1:11 to 1:38-ish he IS playing J.S. Bach (specifically, an excerpt from the famous harpsichord solo from the 1st movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #5 in D) but he's doing so facing forward (normally) to the keyboard. What he's playing "backwards" is fun and interesting, but it's NOT Bach, just improvisation.

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  • @Friendulum , Hey thanks for that great info.....Keith is AMAAAAAAZING!!!

  • I'm actually going to see Keith Emerson and Greg Lake performing here in Los Angeles this coming April 25 (it's a sort of "unplugged"-type format, just the two of them) at L.A.'s Orpheum theatre. I'm hoping that they'll perform some older "Keith & Greg" favorites like "Take a Pebble" amongst other less-played originals.

    Carl Palmer will again be performing with them later this July 25, at the "High Voltage Festival", UK's new flagship classic rock event in Victoria Park, London.

  • @Friendulum Saw Keith and Greg last night (4/22) in Phoenix, got to watch with Chris Squire from Yes, who agreed that Keith and Greg still have it. Great show, neat stage ideas, and freaking amazing solos! They did play Pebble, plus some Bartok, all the faves, even a couple of Nice and King Crimson tunes

  • @Friendulum Hey, I was there!! Man, when I saw the smoke blowing over that medieval looking backdrop I just knew they were gonna rock.

  • @Friendulum You`ve got a brother here, saw him with ELP on four occasions, once at Soldier Field with the 63 piece orchestra in front of 60+ thousand people. Never disappointed, always looking to entertain and put the percussion in a percussion instrument that is so seldom played that way...

  • @Friendulum He's great to see in concert! I saw him seven months ago and I'm only 13! It's nice that these guys are still around so I can see them after I've discovered them. :D

  • @GuitarMasterizer You obviously possess a very discerning musical mind, G.Mast., and I envy that your discovery of ELP is still a recent and ongoing development. Besides Emerson's incorporation and reworking (or rocking--rawking?) of the music of Bach, Bartok, Copland, Mussorgsky, etc. into his own blues-based and 20th-century musical stylings, Emerson's 'long-form' compositions provide an endless landscape for stimulating, often surprising musical journeys.

  • @GuitarMasterizer I was around 11 when I first began to absorb ELP and it became a very influential cornerstone for my musical development, and one which has proven quite versatile and applicable, in particular for the music I've composed for film and TV (i.e., "Batman: The Animated Series" and others). That kind of polytonality and rythmic drive are nicely predisposed to the kind of music that underscores 'action/adventure' cues in such cinematic or animated genres.

  • @Friendulum By the way, I enjoyed watching some of your musical performance videos on here, and you are indeed a solid rhythm guitarist and a true musician with the potential to make music a long-term vocation if you decide to commit to it (although I always try to dissuade young people from pursuing it as a "living"--unless they canNOT be dissuaded, in which case their passion will win out and guide them). All my best wishes to you and for your continued musical evolution(s)!

  • @Friendulum Hmmmmm, I might just argue who the biggest Emo fan is. In more recent years, Keith plays Bach's toccata in D minor when he plays upside down. As you mentioned though, not in this clip.

  • @Friendulum Hmmmm... Pedantic but true - Keith was and still is the Number 1 keyboard showman - everyone else is second best - Rick Wakeman tried but eh....not quite! Emerson=Hendrix=Moon=Pastorius­=Moore=Plant - now THAT is a fucking BAND

  • Indeed, as you're probably quite aware, E, L. and P. were in discussions with Hendrix about teaming up with him before Jimi's untimely death: "H.E.L.P.!" In 2003, I visited George F. "The Messiah" Handel's house while visiting London (they have an historical plaque out on the façade of the building attesting to its famous former resident). On the building right next to it, there is a similar plaque, which announces that IT was the final residence and place of death of Jimi Hendrix! Small world?

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  • Keith was, at the time, the most naturally musical talent in a generation of keyboard stars including Lord, Wakeman, et al but he had what Mr Cowell would doubtless refer to as the "X-Factor"!! lol he was up for being a bit of a showman as well as a serious muso - after all "serious musos" play to other "serious musos" - Keith played to the audience - whoever they were! THAT is the difference between Artiste and FUCKIN' STAR!!!!!

  • Keith is the best Rock Keyboardist there ever was. You are witnessing the manic phase of a creative genius right now. He is an unstoppable force. I love Genesis too much to compare him to Tony Banks, however Keith without question is superior to: Jon Lord, Rick Wakeman, Patrick Moraz, Francis Monkman. Even the highly virtuous Eddie Jobson cannot compare to Keith Emerson. He is absolutely bad-ass! Dropped-out of Julliard School of Music 1 semester before graduating with honors to form The Nice.

  • If you play Bach backwards are you decomposing?

  • Hahahaha well put my friend.

  • @lilscorsese No you're just playing bachwards.

  • Roll over Beetoven? No recomposing!

  • @lilscorsese bahahahahah

  • @lilscorsese I think the song is just dearranged? I prefer Keith play it forward.

  • @lilscorsese Bach certainly is.

  • @lilscorsese HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!! Very Funny!!!

  • My high school opinion: superior to football and politics. Opinion at age 53:same.

  • He and Jon Lord are real gods of Hammond Organs

  • naah, that title belongs to Jimmy Smith.

  • good god all these years listening to him an dI never figured that it was the #5 Brandenburg backwards

  • Man the bass should've stopped or something while Keith was playing that part from concerto 5... Totally doesn't fit the modality of that part.

  • i grew up listening to my mom & her dad both playing piano and organ ( so from then, to this day of course i luv classical music) but keith emerson kicks ass!

  • This remindes me the Space Truckin live in Japan.

  • shit, I was totally thinking it sounded like Space Truckin too

  • "Keith Emerson is the business." (Teo Olivares) ... with which I wholeheartedly agree.

  • Brandenburg Concerto nº5 *-*

  • RONDO

  • The extreme pitch bending is a function of the self-starting motor in the L-100 series organs...he power-cycled the organ to get those bends out of it. You can make them go all over the place, not very controllable, but delightfully chaotic as seen here. I have an L-100 in the stable...they're a blast to play.

  • I have The m100 series with the same features! and the reverb crashes like an thunder storm! driven through a stack it sounds amazing !

  • M100s have decent vibrato, that's the one main difference.

  • I love the reverb tank crashes. And that pitch bend stuff he's doing...that would be in this case actually varying the line voltage to the organ right? I always assumed on Genesis "Stagnation" (from Trespass) that the pitch bends in Tony Banks' solo were done w/tape varispeed - but this makes me wonder if Tony had a similar setup on his L122? That's not a standard feature is it? I never played an L series...

  • what Bach song was he playing backwards?

  • one of his cantata & prelude on organ solo

  • the fifth Brandeburg Concert's cadenza :)

  • He does not play the cadenza backwards ! And, anyway, he just plays a little part ; quickly, but a little part. Nevertheless, he's still Keith Emerson. "Picture at an exhibition" was one of my teenage's favorite record.

  • I didn't mean he was playing backwards! :)

    I misunderstood JimmyPage's question.

    Picture at anexhibition is one of my favourite records too!

  • i remember too ..KE was so tall and his hammond or synth looked so huge and clumsy...and what sound !!!! This Pict..was ..thnx Taf for reminding me

  • uno dei miei gruppi preferiti... il progressive è troppo bello ;)

  • wow

  • This dude did with his Hammond,

    what Hendrix did with his guitar.

    Almost just as good.

  • Henrix once offered Emerson to join his band

  • Yeah, ELP was onced going to be called "HELP".

  • Man, what could've been.

  • I just love the absurdity of what he is doing. That is what makes this video.

  • saw them do this ;)

  • the most rock and roll thing ever.

  • ha!My dad had an organ similar to this!!Its from the Hammond "L" SERIES ,,100..102.Keith was probably the reason I chose to be a musician!

  • aha! Thought that looked like an L100.

  • bob - Dude, it's a Hammond. So long as you oil it once a year and play it nicely (his was specially modified so it would think abuse like this IS playing nice) you can wait until a century after hell freezes over for something to go wrong. I have a similar model that's taken just as much abuse from kids in a church basement, and all I have to do is oil it and fix a tone wheel and the pedals. Other than that, it's a real cherry.