Central Park

King Crimson
New York
25 Jun 1973

“Looks like Larks’ Tongues In Aspic first,” says an enthusiastic fan next to the microphone of this specially restored audience recording. However, as the strains of Fripp and Eno’s, The Heavenly Music Corporation fade away, the band burst forth with a heavy-sounding Doctor Diamond. Not for the first time, King Crimson has wrong-footed the boisterous, sell-out crowd who nevertheless give a piece they've never heard before a standing ovation. Not a bad way to get the gig underway.

The group is 42 dates into a lengthy and gruelling North American campaign with only another three to go. Given this, you might expect the band to sound somewhat road-weary but there’s plenty of energy in evidence on stage. The second improv that oozes out of Exiles has Wetton’s bass set at stun with some of the most malevolent roars ever to be summoned on the bass guitar. Afterward, David Cross’s violin solo on The Talking Drum is bordering on unhinged as he weaves in between the howling surge of Fripp’s lead guitar. Following a brutal Larks’ Two they charge off into a bulldozing 21st Century Schizoid wherein Fripp’s solo is ‘off the fricken charts,’ as someone in the audience might well have said.

Sourced from a rather grainy bootleg tape, Alex ‘Stormy’ Mundy has worked his sonic magic on it and deftly inserted the audio from the TV footage from the same gig for Easy Money and the following improvisation - part of which would later be recycled by the band for Guts On My Side - thus making this the very best version of this particular concert.


Definitely listenable
Written by Chris Inguanta
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A bit murky and muddied at times, but an excellent listen. The Crims were in fine form and it was fu...
Written by Chris Inguanta
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Always Great in Central Park!
Written by Teagan Lehrling
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Alex has done a great job cleaning up a rather subpar bootleg into something a lot nicer to listen t...
Written by Teagan Lehrling
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Great performance, SQ is not terrible
Written by Daniel Bukszpan
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Like most of the recordings of this lineup of the band, it's an audience recording, so audiophiles m...
Written by Daniel Bukszpan
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Crimson on FIRE!
Written by Samuel Langer
Performance: 11/10 Audio quality: 5/10 I own the bootleg for this concert and wow, Crimson is ON F...
Written by Samuel Langer
Just For You
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