“‘Ang about, ‘ang about. It would be rude of me to talk over you and since I have no intention of stopping, I suggest that you do,” says Robert Fripp attempting a bit of crowd control with a very boisterous audience in the hot environs of West Palm Beach. The very listenable audience recording captures the Crims in fiery form with a superbly dispatched Doctor Diamond. It is a source of constant wonder how John Wetton managed to sing those words at this speed! Sometimes on this tour the intro to Larks’ Part I sometimes consists of some perfunctory vectoring as the quartet gets into the zone. On this occasion, there are some nice explorations of tones and texture that stand up rather well. Wetton again dominates with a scorching wah-wah bass solo that eventually subsides into an airy David Cross obbligato.
The improv that acts as a prelude to Exiles is dark and sombre which of course stands in dramatic contrast to the joyous elation that surges through Fripp’s solo during a superb reading of the song. The second improv that ultimately runs into The Talking Drum cautiously opens with another fractious frightscape with Cross on the lower register of the violin taking the piece into a deeply introspective location. When Fripp’s Mellotron strings enter, Bruford keeps steady time with rimshots, sounding rather like where the idea for the ballad section for Starless might have originated. That sense of recognition is reinforced when Cross enters again with a plaintive, mournful solo. Rounding an eventful evening off with a cracking Larks’ II and a bulldozer Schizoid Man, this is a great gig.
