From cautious beginnings Improv II quickly expands into lolloping beast of a track providing what is arguably the best set-up to Exiles to date.[endtease] As Cross and Wetton hurl fuzzed lines across the stage over one of Bruford’s slow-burning jazz vamps, Fripp introduces one sustained note that lasts somewhere in the region of 37 seconds. An object lesson in making a little go a long way. Looking back on this little hummer of a gig, lyricist Richard Palmer-James offers this observation “What had seemed robust in the music the night before (at Mainz) now became threatening . . . the unsettling power of the performance comes through. In the dressing room afterwards, John sprawled naked on a bench, looking like he'd been shipwrecked; he didn't really recover before he went to bed. Even Robert had a few beers later in the pub. There was a quiet euphoria in the air, as if they'd survived a potentially lethal accident.”
