King Crimson - 1981-05-07 Manchester, UK - Polytechnic (2009)

Although they only had five gigs under their belt, Discipline entered Manchester sounding confident[endtease] and ready to take on all-comers. You can almost hear the brashness in this line-up as they launch into a set that just four weeks previously did not exist.

There’s a palpable joy in the bouncy rendition of Elephant Talk (reprised also as an encore) and Frame By Frame’s incorporation of Steve Reich’s phasing patterns sounds as hair-raising now as it must have done at the time.

Red, being played in public for the only the sixth time since it first appeared on Crimso’s 1974 album of the same name, receives a rapturous welcome. In the post-punk era during which this concert took place, it’s interesting to note that a call for 21st Century Schizoid Man from a member of the audience is met with significantly less enthusiasm. That said, the reception given to Larks’ Tongues In Aspic borders on the ecstatic.

To some extent the material that had been fashioned during the Discipline rehearsals the previous month are still fluid and not everything is fixed in place. The Sheltering Sky, originally born from an improvisation, is being moulded and shaped onstage at Manchester. Fripp’s solo towards the end of the piece dramatically incorporates the introductory ascending lines from Red.

Restored from a bootleg source, Alex “Stormy” Mundy has breathed a fiery life into this recording which captures the excitement of the night both on and off the stage.