LIVE IN GUILDFORD 1972

The new incarnation of King Crimson played its first gigs in Germany. Evidence of these performances can be found on the Crimson Collector's Club releases "The Beat Club, Bremen" and "Live at the Zoom Club". After this they went to the UK and the fourth concert on the island was in Guildford, on November 13. Four tracks from this concert ended up on this cd.

The first track is "Larks' tongues in Aspic (part 1)". It is a great version, especially because Jamie Muir can play all his percussive tricks. Next is "Book of Saturday", which was called "Daily Games" at that time. John Wetton proves to be a good singer on this nice version of one of the best Crimson ballads. What makes this cd the most interesting for Crimson fans is the next offering: a 25 minute improv. King Crimson has always been a band that did a lot of improvisations during their shows (partly to try out new material) but in the formative months of this incarnation they made them last very long. Other examples can be found on the cd's I mentioned in the introduction. As a whole I find this improv a bit too long, there are some interesting parts however. One of them is a segment that would later be recorded as "We'll let you know". After about 15 minutes there is a great violin guitar duet, played very gentle and emotional. The improv ends with a heavy guitar solo. The last track is "Exiles". Just when the band goes into another improvisation, the tape runs out. This is a shame, because the opening sounded good.

Because there are only three live cd's of Crimson with Jamie Muir (so far) and since these are the first steps of what would become a great incarnation of KC (72-74) this is by no doubt an interesting album. The sound quality is not of a high standard, but still good. It is the best from the three live albums with Muir. The music and performance is great. If I were to recommend this album to anyone, than only to a Crimson fan who wants to hear the 72 line up with Muir. But if you want to do yourself a real treat, you should go for the Zoom club album.