Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends... Ladies And Gentlemen
Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends... Ladies and Gentlemen, Emerson, Lake & Palmer is a 1974 live album by progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. It was originally packaged as a three-disk vinyl set in a gatefold ("trifold" with two sections opening away from the center) cover, the inside of which used the letters "E", "L" and "P" as retainers for the individual disks. The album reached #4 on the Billboard album chart, making it ELP's highest charting album in the US.
This was the last ELP release for almost three years while the band took an extended break to recover and pursue some solo projects that eventually ended up on their next release Works in 1977.
The album was recorded during the 1973/1974 Someone Get Me a Ladder world tour. The title of the album comes from the introduction to the performance, itself a paraphrase of the opening line of the song "Karn Evil 9: First Impression, Part 2". The "welcome back my friends" hook was also used by Alan Freeman on some of his radio shows.
The Quadraphonic mix of the album was only released in the Quadraphonic 8-track cartridge format, as a three-tape set. Despite the tape cartridge box art sharing the Quadradisc record logo, a planned CD-4 quad vinyl version of the 3 record set had to be scrapped, due to engineering issues with master tapes that prevented JVC from cutting a stable master to meet strict CD-4 format specifications.
Most of the original recordings included on the album had been first issued as a presentation for the syndicated US radio show "King Biscuit Flower Hour". In 1999, these original radio recordings were released on CD.
John Lydon once appeared on stage with the Sex Pistols in London wearing a t-shirt featuring pictures of Emerson, Lake and Palmer with the slogan "Welcome Back Bellends..." and proceeded to burn an effigy of Keith Emerson.
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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