The last two nights from the 1971 residency at the Zoom Club in Frankfurt have gone online today.

For fans of this particular incarnation of Crimson having all four dates available offers a real insight into the development of the group.  

Having been out of action for over a year following the demise of KC 69, the trial run at the club (formerly The Storyville club where Ian Wallace once played as a member of the Warriors with Jon Anderson) allowed the band to try out in public what they’d been hatching in the privacy of the basement rehearsal rooms on the Fulham Road. 

We can hear a potentially radically different Crimson soaring closer to the free-jazz climes hinted at on Lizard rather than the rather formal structures of Court and Poseidon. 

Some of the most exciting moments in these sets can be found in the tension between established repertoire, improvisation and their attempts to bring to the two together.  Sometimes it hits and sometimes it misses such as on the rather jazzy outing of Pictures Of A City from the third night, when it veers off into freeform territory and into near freefall as they fluff the re-entry into the song proper!

Throughout the shows, Wallace and Collins are monstrously powerful, pushing and probing in all kinds of directions – just listen to their powerhouse performance of Get Thy Bearings on the 14th; this stuff is simply astonishing. 

The gigs were a baptism by fire for all concerned but especially for Boz who had to cope with some difficult lines, both musical and lyrical.  His confidence might have been shaken after the first gig but all things considered, he comes out of these gigs rather well. 

By making all of the Zoom club sessions available we can enjoy a close-up snapshot of the band navigating between the expectations and certainties of its older material, and their desire to slip out from under its shadow to explore uncharted territories.