Fresh from the success of the previous evening in Philadelphia (captured for posterity on KCCC26), Crimson headed to the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park. An awful lot about the band had changed since Fripp and Bruford were last in the neighbourhood back in 1974: songs about the Beat generation, electronic percussives, twin-guitar synth-noise terror, the whole rock-gamelan groove thang and a dazzling New Wave chutzpah that confounded some critics and old-school fans alike.
This is a confident Crimson retaining its reputation for experimentation by pushing the song format to the limit with fiery versions of Indiscipline and Neurotica. For all its interlocking angularity, Neal And Jack And Me is played to perfection on this gig, knocking several spots off the version that had only recently been released on Beat. Sartori has Fripp coming in low and lean but quickly running out of fretboard as the Turkish trumpet dervish gets a-twirling. Despite the newness of the sounds, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic sounds very much at home here in Asbury Park. The only note of caution here is that what sounds like a world-class rendition of Frame By Frame is cruelly cut short when the 8-track conked out.
Nevertheless this is a vital reinterpretation of what a rock group could achieve by mixing contrasting cultural influences and the pushing the timbral palette. Nobody sounded like this band at the time.
