Posted by Sid Smith on Jul 11, 2014 - This post is archived and may no longer be relevant

On July 11th the 80s incarnation played its final gig in Montreal. The show was recorded for radio broadcast and was released in 1998 as Absent Lovers.


Following the gig in Montreal the band broke up. The irony is that the band had never sounded better.  The material from Three Of A Perfect Pair had begun to breathe and knitted well into the set. The music was tight, incisive and moving at a stunning pace.  The release of Absent Lovers release showed Crimson had never sounded better and indeed the performance of much of the material surpassed many of their original versions — LTIA II in particular hadn’t sounded so animated and full of vim and vigour for quite a while.

Fripp recalls: "We recorded the last shows on multitrack sensing that the end of the band might be nigh. This allowed for a possible live album to commemorate the outfit (as with USA).  Bill mixed the tapes for a Canadian radio broadcast, which became a bootleg (as with any radio broadcast) called Absent Lovers.  Any mix of any music is a presentation of a world-view: a sonic society of the imagination, how we see that world and our place in it.  When I was given a copy of Bill’s mix, it confirmed my sense of Bill’s Crimson world-view, and gave deep offence."

On Sunday July 12, the morning after the last show at Le Spectrum, the team were having breakfast in their hotel.  Bruford recalls Fripp joining them and announcing to his colleagues that the band was no more. 

Asked by journalist Bill Milkowski what the future held for King Crimson now that the incline to 1984 had been completed, Adrian Belew replied “I think it is unstated as to what the future holds for King Crimson. We just have to sit down and consider that at the end of all this touring. Personally, I’d like to see it take a break for a while, mainly because I feel a real need to fulfill a lot of musical ideas that aren’t fitting for King Crimson. That’s where I’m at; I don’t know about the other guys in the band. Robert likes to do things in three album sets, and it was planned that way. But I think it would be unfair to assume that once we reached our goal it would automatically be over. I don’t think Robert has said that in the press. He’s never said that to me. And I’m sure Bill and Tony want to play further. But, as Robert says, now the band is free to play together if it wants to. So there’s a lot of openness to it.”

Fripp offers this perspective on the reasons for the break-up of the group.  "We compressed the making of three albums into three years, which was probably too short for the music to emerge organically.  But, with different career interests and tensions in the band, had we waited longer maybe little more would have developed organically anyway. Regardless of what the albums achieved, Absent Lovers validates the group as a live unit, right up to the end.  That particular end was a finish, a conclusion and a completion. No discussion followed the end of the tour, to address either working together or not working together. "

Whether by accident or design, inertia took hold and Crimson’s return to the first division was at an end.  As Crimson manager Paddy Spinks sat in Montreal mulling over his breakfast, there was an despondent air.  "I think we all kind of knew that if there wasn’t going to be an actual end to the thing at the end of the tour then there was certainly going to be a long pause. And if you think about it, there certainly was a hell of a long pause."