Come and See the Show - The Best of Emerson Lake & Palmer

Album Review

Emerson, Lake & Palmer aren't the first, or among the first hundred, groups you think of as most likely or suitable to be represented by a single-disc collection. But Come and See the Show isn't the first such anthology, and given that the format's already proven viable more than once, it likely won't be the last. If you're the kind of fan who doesn't find reduction from the album-length format on which prog rockers Emerson, Lake & Palmer relied a problem, Come and See the Show is a pretty good distillation of their more famous (and usually best) tracks. Some might quibble as to the choices of the secondary tracks (though they're probably not the general fans most likely to buy such best-ofs), but undeniably the group's most celebrated songs are present, those including "Lucky Man," "C'est la Vie," "Fanfare for the Common Man," "From the Beginning," "Knife Edge," and "Trilogy." Live versions of "Nut Rocker," "Toccata," and "Peter Gunn" vary the pace, as does "I Believe in Father Christmas." The single-CD best-of format means there isn't room for their longer extravaganzas, but those will long be available on their individual albums should you want to investigate deeper.