The second show of the night and Johnny Toobad’s appearance is still a topic of conversation. “There is currently a discussion in this band; whether or not one can reasonably describe our drummer as emaciated. Others might say that conceivably he’s underfed and therefore underpaid. On first blush I’d be inclined to agree,” says Fripp sharing an in-joke with the audience. With the benefit of hindsight the steady progression that marks Robert’s path from one staging point to another, it seems only logical that The League Of Gentlemen would inevitably lead to Discipline and King Crimson. However, it wasn’t like that for audiences at the time who, if they were hardcore enthusiasts, had only just got over seeing Frippertronics and perhaps still had Exposure ringing loudly in their ears as their only contemporary point of reference. If they were first-timers probably not even that. As these concerts ably demonstrate, to simply see the League as a mere footnote in a bigger story is a mistake. They were an astonishingly powerful group and this recording, in particular, the second show of the night no less, is arguably one of the best of the tour so far. Such are the furies unleashed, Fripp, the guitarist who never breaks a string, well, breaks a string during an especially ferocious Dislocated. This, in turn, leaves Johnny Toobad the space for a *very* sparse drum solo - yet another in-joke - while Fripp attends to putting on the second new string of the day. The mayhem that follows, firstly with the second Thrang and the resulting extended set is quite marvellous. If you only buy one show from this run of gigs then this is one to go for.
