King Crimson - 1984-06-26 New York, NY (2019)

“Thank you very much. Continuing on at this moment we’d like to do some more music from our very yellow record,” says Adrian Belew straight after a powerful reading of Industry. It’s possible that some in the audience with long memories might have been reminded of Mars an earlier Crimson epic with a similarly dark and unforgiving feel as Industry.

Any witless wondering such as this will have been mown down by Dig Me which veers between disturbing angularity and caustic experimentation through to a brightly-lit poppy swagger that embodies the excessive/accessible dichotomy referred to on Three Of A Perfect Pair’s cover art.

Tony’s introduction to Sartori In Tangier clearly whets the appetite of an already lively audience. As Bruford and Belew indulge in some double drumming, Fripp’s banshee squeal of a solo proves incendiary as does Belew’s skydiving swoops and soaring skimming off the propulsive groove of Waiting Man.

This is great sounding audience recording and with a truly barnstorming Sleepless taken at a rattling pace and an especially trippy and cosmic rendition of The Sheltering Sky hovering over the outdoor venue the Crims are on astonishingly strong form here a mere eleven gigs away from their dissolution in Montreal.

Please note that there’s a jump cut to mono during Elephant Talk which was on the original bootleg tape. This has been cleaned up as far as it can be by DGM’s Alex Mundy.
Robert Fripp - Guitar
Adrian Belew - Guitar, Vocals, Drumming
Tony Levin - Stick, Bass
Bill Bruford - Acoustic And Electronic Percussion