King Crimson - 1973-10-26 London, UK (2019)

Although their UK Autumn tour consisted of just six dates King Crimson were on stunning form as this great-sounding audience recording demonstrates.

Alongside the warmly-received Larks’ Tongues In Aspic material, including a truly blistering Part I, this concert also highlights tracks which would ultimately appear on their next release in 1974.

The Nightwatch, Lament, and Fracture, on which you’ll hear Bruford exclaim at almost precisely the same point he would eighteen gigs later at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, had been rolled out in America earlier in the month. It’s interesting to note how well bedded-in the renditions at The Rainbow are, each exuding a devil-may-care insouciance in places.

It’s evident just from Fripp’s two classic announcements during the show just how the band is enjoying themselves as the guitarist drolly lampoons recent live reviews from the press in one, and threatens to demonstrate the band’s new dance move that goes by the name of The Mince in the other. The download is almost worth grabbing just for these alone!

The improvisations tonight variously return to some of the motifs of We’ll Let You Know from Glasgow just three nights previously and there’s a relatively rare outing for Bill Bruford’s drum machine which supplies the groove to a very satisfying quartet rock-out.

Contemporary reaction to the concert suggests that the band were let down by the muddy acoustics of the venue but this particular taper struck lucky, capturing an especially powerful performance by the Crims.

Robert Fripp - Guitar, Mellotron
John Wetton - Bass, Vocals
Bill Bruford - Acoustic Drums And Percussion
David Cross - Violin, Mellotron, Keyboards