Peel on Prog rock

[John Bravin]

I saw Peel introduce the Nice at the Bath Festival in 1969 and at that time they were tolerable, and in places exciting.  And so were a few other bands that were later to take the Spinal Tap route to commercial success and musical tedium (notably Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac). Take a look at the size of the stage (only two crash barriers wide) http://tinpan.fortunecity.com/ebony/546/Nice-69-bath.html . and you can see why there was no space for orchestras or other Prog frippery. It all went down hill very quickly: a year later at the 1970 Bath Festival the Pink Floyd had the Phillip Jones Brass Ensemble and the John Aldis Choir on stage (although I must say they were actually really good). 

There were actually very few successful bands that Peel has never really taken to, ELP being one of them.  My theory is that for all his professed attempts to move beyond white boys playing guitars, he doesn't like keyboard players.  And behind almost every monstrous Prog band of the 70's there was a keyboard player who thought he was Rachmaninov. And the two great keyboard players he continued to play, Ian Stewart (Stones) and Ian McClagen (Faces) were content to play Boogie Woogie.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: simon smith 
  To: peel@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2004 4:19 PM
  Subject: Re: [peel] Re: Prog doc on BBC 4


  Peel *loathed* ELP from the start! He's always very happy to pronounce 
  on them. On the programme he was utterly scathing about them and their 
  audience (he was at their first gig - or so he says - I don't entirely 
  trust the old man's memory nowadays). I also remembering him saying that 
  he was reduced to tears by a Nice gig when they played some rocked-up 
  classical number.
  He had a couple of sessions from Genesis, I think, not sure about Yes, 
  but I don't think he played them. He always supported the Floyd.