King Crimson - 1972-12-01 Glasgow, UK (2012)

After a confident start with a truly storming Larks’ Tongues Part 1 Robert seemingly loses focus during Book Of Saturday. Whether this was due to a technical issue or some extraneous occurrence of the Green’s kind is unknown. Quickly recuperating, the song proceeds towards an orderly conclusion and dives off into an improvisation. Careful listeners will note that it is not one but two violins that rise up from these pastoral beginnings with John Wetton quite literally playing second fiddle to Dave Cross. John had taken up the violin when he first joined Family in June 1971 in order to duplicate the parts bequeathed to him by departing bassist/violinist John Weider. Sadly it was the criticism of this duet spot from members of his former band that led John to put his violin back in its case for good.

The improv soon develops into more aggressive territories with Bruford and Muir building up a volley of percussion over which Fripp’s guitar strafes and dives. The white-hot intensity of the piece is marred by the distorted audio quality but once your ears get used to the sonics it’s all rather exhilarating. It’s Crimson’s refusal to sound like any other UK rock band treading the boards at that time that make the band such a hot ticket.

As things subside we hear some growling mellotron and Muir’s percussion and all sorts are deployed followed by the emergence of a Mellotron-led theme that sounds like it’s been cut from the same cloth as Sailors’ Tale.

Coming out of Easy Money the surviving portion of the second improv contains shimmering guitar elements that Fripp would later revisit for his introduction to the Night Watch. It's interesting and not a little intriguing to hear Muir's solo spot featuring some of the madcap humour for which he will forever be associated with going down so well with the equally boisterous Glasgow crowd. Sadly the incomplete source tape cuts out just before Bruford enters the fray.

This Show is also Disc 8 of the Larks' Tongues in Aspic Box Set

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