After Rush, Genesis and Yes, multi-instrumentalist Antoine Baril delves into the repertoire of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. He was able to play the virtuoso keyboardist’s instruments and filmed sequences at the Olympic Stadium, where the British trio had performed in 1977.
“It’s my most ambitious project, the most disproportionate, the most demanding, the most expensive and the longest to do,” he said in an interview.
The 41-year-old musician even took three hours of piano lessons a day for six months in order to approach the quality of Keith Emerson’s playing.
“It was above my level and it’s the hardest thing I’ve done on keyboards in my entire life,” he said.
In the 25-minute music video One Man ELP, available on YouTube, the multi-instrumentalist performs a solo medley featuring excerpts from Tarkus, Knife Edge, Trilogy, Karn Evil 9, Pictures at an Exhibition, Fanfare for the Common Man and others.
Olympic Stadium
Antoine Baril, owner of Studio Hemisphere on Quebec’s south coast, was set to delve into the music of British band Gentle Giant.
Photo courtesy of Paul Di Giacomo
“People at the Electronic Music Education and Preservation Project Museum in Pennsylvania had seen one of my videos. They offered me to come and play the keyboards they had in their possession, used by Keith Emerson. My plan has changed,” he said.
Without this suggestion, Antoine Baril would never have thrown himself into the Emerson Lake and Palmer repertoire.
“Because it’s too complicated,” he said.
The 2020 One Man ELP clip posted to YouTube on Thursday represents 1,500 hours and three years of work.
Antoine Baril could walk his fingers on Keith Emerson’s Moog synthesizer, on Opus Tarkus’ organ and on his Steinway grand piano.
“For five days I recorded the sequences with his instruments from 8am to midnight. At the end of the evening I was having a hard time holding the steering wheel of my car so much that my arms hurt,” he said.
Antoine Baril recorded the remaining sequences at the Olympic Stadium, where Emerson, Lake and Palmer had performed on August 26, 1977 to a crowd of 74,000 accompanied by a 70-piece symphony orchestra.
Photo courtesy of Paul Di Giacomo
video games
The musician, who is part of the groups From Dying Suns and Augury, was four years old when Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Carl Palmer played there, accompanied by a symphony orchestra of 70 musicians.
We see it on guitar and bass during these two sequences.
“I absolutely freaked out about recording where I saw Pink Floyd in 1994. The ELP show was larger than life back then. I went to the stadium. All that was missing was snow and Keith Emerson’s fur coat,” he recalled with a laugh, referring to the music video for the play “Fanfare for the Common Man” shot in the Olympic Stadium.
After receiving rave reviews from Genesis’ Steve Hackett and Yes’s Rick Wakeman and Trevor Rabin, it was Jon Anderson, the group’s lead singer, who came forward.
“He wrote to me last weekend to say he played a little bit on the instrument side of everything but never that close to my standards but that he was still able to make a living at it. I thought it was very nice,” he said.
With the deaths of Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Cozy Powell, Antoine Baril doesn’t know if drummer Carl Palmer, ELP’s sole survivor, will react to his clip shot in 4K by videographer Paul Di Giacomo.
Antoine Baril admits that he made his clips for fun and for the love of music, with no subsidies and no sponsors.
“It’s a big financial investment that won’t pay off, but it has changed my career. Since the clip with the Genesis music I’ve done 50 gigs as a drummer for the tribute band The Musical Box and people from the video game company Ghost Games who are behind the game BioShock who saw my videos offered me a contract for the music a video game that I’ve been working on for three and a half years. These videos changed my life,” he said.
Antoine Baril doesn’t know what his next project will be after the One Man ELP. He is preparing a documentary about the making of this clip, which will be ready in the coming months.
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