I read that somewhere in a set of sleeve notes.
John Peel was a big fan of The Nice and attended the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 where ELP made their official debut performance. He called it a 'waste of time, talent and electricity'.
Emerson had 2 brass cannons on stage which he fired off at one point during the set.
ELP, along with the likes of Led Zep, Deep Purple and Yes were all slammed with a tag of 'boring dinosaurs' when punk came along and it was absolutely not fashionable to be seen listening to that sort of old-fashioned rubbish. It was decades later that I really discovered those bands and the astonishing music they made in the early 70's.
But ELP were themselves running out of steam and wanted to take a time-out. Record boss Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records forced them into recording one last album for his label, 'Love Beach'.
You would have been excused for thinking that this cover was the Bee-Gees latest effort. Actually, coming back to this LP (panned mercilessly at the time) it isn't as bad as I remember it to be. All acts were being forced to either go in a punky or Disco direction and produce Hit Singles. 'All I Want Is You' is a great Greg Lake song and side 2 of the LP was 'Memoirs of an Officer and a Gentleman' with some lovely piano expansions from KE.
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Memoirs of an Officer and a Gentleman (Part 1 of 2)
Luckily for us - great music remains great music and is a joy when it is (re) discovered to be appreciated anew.