My first real concert was The Guess Who around 70 or 71. I was on the road, don't remember the city, great show but LOUD. The second one was when we were booked in Honolulu for almost a year and Santana was playing the Crater in Diamond Head. Also a great show but man, even LOUDER. Both times my ears were almost hurting and nobody had to tell me that was not a good thing. I never went to an actual big rock concert again because of that although we were one of the opening acts for ELP and that was certainly loud too.

Speaking of that when we showed up in the afternoon for a soundcheck Emerson was playing a 9' concert grand piano by himself. All classical. Everybody including the crew, all the different musicans and anybody else hanging around were completely mesmerized by him. What a player. We all hung back by the backstage curtains and there he was all by himself just practicing I guess. He finally stopped and walked away and we were all just stunned. Doing a soundcheck after that was somewhat underwhelming. Here I am the B3 player and I'm OK but lightyears behind Emerson. My featured song at that time in the show group was ELP's version of Hoedown with a jazzy solo section. I was only slightly intimidated...

Bob

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