After the Cheap Trick concert concluded, Geoff Emerick graciously met with audience members who wanted autographs and/or pictures. As soon as he was introduced, my mind was racing because his name was sooooooooo familiar and why he was critical to the performance. Let’s hear it for allmusic.com, the iPhone and Las Vegas having a solid 3G network!
All Beatles diehards know him but just to cover all the bases for everybody, Geoff was the recording engineer at Abbey Road Studios starting with Revolver in 1966 and obviously he is familiar with all the technical ins and outs of Sgt. Pepper which made his involvement mandatory for Cheap Trick. Beyond his Beatles’ involvement, Geoff has either engineered or produced albums for Badfinger, America, McCartney & Wings (Band on the Run!), Nazareth, Gino Vanelli and Elvis Costello. Oddly, his name kept sticking in my craw for reasons other than those acts and how annoyed I felt that I didn’t remember it earlier to thank him for producing Dizrhythmia by Split Enz!
I may be losing at the tables and machines in Las Vegas but when it comes to music and its history, I consider myself incredibly lucky because I got to meet another person who is a huge factor in shaping popular culture