Recorded during his 2012 solo tour, Songs Of A Lifetime finds Lake touching base with his 40-odd years in the music business, the set-list compiled from tracks that, he says, kept “popping up” while he was working on his autobiography.
Consequently, there are more subdued and acoustically fashioned versions of material first performed with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer, and a bombastic opening salvo of King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man. However, Lake the fan also flicks through the songbooks of others, sounding awkward and stilted on Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel but on safer ground with The Beatles’ You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away.
Greg’s terribly formal introductions give the show the air of a university lecture, prefacing music that’s undeniably expertly played but seemingly with little real passion or intimacy. Curtis Mayfield’s People Get Ready is shorn of all its soul by a singer struggling to locate the nuance of the lyric.
