On this date in 1972, Boz-era KC played its last gig in Birmingham, Alabama. You’ll see that Hugh has posted up some photographs from that night sent to us from Chuck Bryant. Chuck was also happy to share with us his memories and impressions of the evening.
including 21st Century Crimhead Man
"April 1, 1972. The Municipal Auditorium, Birmingham, Alabama, United States. Five bucks for general admission means first come, first seated (or first stood, if the main floor has no chairs). Real fans arrive a few hours before the doors open. More intense fans arrive even earlier in the day. True disciples sleep on the sidewalk the night before. Maybe they need a little broader perspective on life—a fact which could easily apply to most adolescents, And at 15 on that day, I’d have camped out on that sidewalk, given the opportunity.
My fanaticism began a few years earlier. I was 12 or 13 years old. I still enjoyed super-lite pop like The Monkees, but I’d also begun getting into early prog rock and psychedelia. An older friend recommended two new groups: some trio known as Crosby, Stills, and Nash (another good choice, it turned out), and King Crimson. I bought both albums. When I set the stylus down to hear the distant breathy reeds at the outset of 21st Century Schizoid Man, I had no idea of the aural bombast to follow as I entered the Court of the Crimson King. Over the next forty-five minutes these two sides of vinyl blasted me through the wall and out into the street. Fripp and company stood out far beyond my fanaticism for Iron Butterfly, Yes, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Soft Machine, Moody Blues, Cream, Vanilla Fudge—and they surely beat all bloody hell out of The Monkees. KC’s then-unique and ever-evolving musical vision started leading my musical tastes into musica terra incognita (especially in what I’d later learn some called the Canterbury school) and even prepped me for later forays into jazz, classical, and avant-garde.
So a few years and four LP’s later, when I faced this opportunity to see KC live, I nearly pissed myself. My two older brothers and their friends didn’t want “little bother” tagging along. But I’d been shut out of visiting the Fillmore West (Junior Walker, Lee Michaels) on our California vacation a few years earlier, and I would not miss this trip. Fortunately for me, this concert fell on the day before my sixteenth birthday. That gave me a little leverage. I had a seat in the van as we set out on a three-hour tour north from Andalusia, headed for the big city.
I arrived at the auditorium around maybe fiveish. We found a crowd, but not too large a group. The doors opened at seven and we all made the rush down the concrete steps onto the main floor. I managed to get pretty close to the stage.
Anticipation built over the next couple of hours. The evening kicked off with the R&B trio Ashton, Gardner, & Dyke. I recall enjoying the set but it couldn’t end soon enough. I’d come to Birmingham for my Crimson baptism.
Finally KC, in its incarnation as the Islands quartet, took the stage. I think they opened with Pictures of a City. I took off into nirvana. There sat Robert Fripp, my musical idol, maybe twenty feet away. I stood transfixed, watching Fripp’s left hand leave sparks and smoke as he ripped up and down the fretboard. During those blistering solos his right hand by contrast usually showed only staccato movement, jerking slightly as if in a fast-forward video. The rest of his body remained relatively motionless. I don’t recall him leaving the stool he sat on. I’m not sure if he ever blinked, or even breathed.
I recall that maybe half the set came from the four LP’s. Unfortunately, I don’t recall many specifics. I know 21st Century Schizoid Man blasted my guts out. I do not recall anything from Lizard; I know it disappointed me that they didn’t do In the Wake of Poseidon. I do remember Ladies of the Road; I think they performed Sailor’s Tale and The Devil’s Triangle, but that may reflect my having heard those on concert CD’s in recent years. To my dismay I do not recall the set including In the Court of the Crimson King; I think that would stand out had they played it.
Much of the set surprised me as they settled into jams or outright improvs, some jazzy and bluesy, some atonal, even frantic, and free portions with no discernible beat—not at all the KC I knew from the LP’s. Turns out that much of this showed up later on the first concert LP, Earthbound (which they recorded on this tour, during the six weeks prior).
Like most stage shows then, KC had only routine lighting. For some sort of visual effect, Mel Collins began spinning the Mellotron around on its wheels during one jam. It didn’t make any sense to me then. It still doesn’t. So what. It was 1972, long before lasers and dry ice and so forth would become sometime visual complements, too often overdone distractions.
The boys played less than an hour. They had to clear the stage for Badfinger. Quite a letdown as I saw it (but not as incongruous a pairing as what I saw two years later, when I went to see Focus, who opened for—get this—the Beach Boys. Now there’s a concert promoter who’d evidently smoked way too much controlled substance). Sure, I enjoyed Baby Blue, Day After Day and their other well-crafted melodies, but I just couldn’t comprehend having such a pop band following Fripp, Burrell, Collins, and Wallace. Ehh, that’s show biz.
Disclaimer: these images entered my mind well over three decades ago. No doubt, shriveling synapses and random neurological noise have created some lapses, distortion, maybe even a few manufactured details. I can’t firmly defend all the details; I can affirm the impressions. At least my reliable little Instamatic camera caught some pretty good photos, which (as I looked at them often in the weeks after the show) did help to cement certain visual elements.
I feel truly fortunate to have seen this one KC performance, as I’ve never made it to another."
You can read and look at more of Chuck's comments about other bands he saw back then (and more recently!) over at his website. In the meantime, a big thanks to Chuck for his time.
