Stony Brook Feb 28 1982
Compiled form several sources by Alex ’Stormy’ Mundy, this concert comes mid-way through a short, two-and-a-half week US tour in the Winter of 82 that took in 10 venues, 6 of which were college campuses.
On this date King Crimson were enjoying the relative luxury of three nights in one place, staying at the Milford Plaza in mid-town Manhattan, the hotel where Adrian had been inspired to write what would become Neurotica, when the band had visited in the Fall of 81 and played a run of shows at the Savoy Theatre. This time it was their hub for shows at Rutgers University in New Jersey on the 26th, and then the 55 miles to SUNY at Stony Brook on the northern shore of Long Island on the 28th.
The preceding months had been a time of intense activity for the band, and they are clearly having fun, driven forward by the success of Discipline, and beginning to introduce new songs that would appear on the follow up album Beat. On this occasion we get Manhattan, yet to be given lyrics by Adrian, Neal and Jack and Me, still a work in progress, a solid version of The Howler complete with improvised section, and the live-only rarity Absent Lovers. All are well received, and Adrian announces they will be going in to record “in about a week”.
This decent sounding audience recording from the college gymnasium begins with Frippertronics played on the Electro Harmonix 16 second delay (’Fripp in a Box’) before opener Discipline and an energetic Thela Hun Ginjeet, combining Adrian's taped words from the famous incident on the streets of Notting Hill, with live vocals. It’s still a treat to hear Red being played live by this lineup and for Crim fans of the time it provided the essential link to Crimsons past. It’s still only 4 months since the release of Discipline and it is easy to forget how new this material would have sounded to the audience. The Sheltering Sky is as ever a crowd pleaser and sees the band stretching out far beyond the studio cut, to more than 10 minutes. For all the precision playing in the set so far, Bill’s extended drum intro to Indiscipline, played on his tuned Simmons kit, is a moment of uncharted adventure, after which Adrian ramps up the intensity further. The audience clearly like it too.
So grab a slice of live 80s Crimson at the peak of its powers, featuring the best of the first album while they road test the new ones prior to entering the studio, and before any of the cracks in the lineup had begun to show.
2 June 2025
