Sourced from a venerable audience recording, it’s just possible to make out that Crimso are turning in a varied performance despite the gnarly sonics. Mel Collins’ sax work on Pictures and Sailors Tale continues to amaze. His flute solo towards the end of Tale, as Fripp plays the ‘Mantovani’ licks on the ‘tron, is a non-stop flurry of invention.
After the serious subject matter of The Letters (and this is a pretty good rendition with a smouldering middle section), Fripp sweetens the pill by appending a sugary coda that ends with a jokey flourish and in doing so punctures the mood which Crimso have spent the last five minutes or so building up. It sounds odd now but it was for a while his standard operating procedure when they played the track. It’s Collins who once again steals the show on Get Thy Bearings, delivering a torrent of twisting choruses that touch on Charles Mingus and a bit of rock ‘n’ roll. After a rather perfunctory Ladies of the Road, and a bit of bicker/banter with the punters, an impatient crowd get an angry-sounding Schizoid Man. Difficult to listen to but there’s some gems to be found lurking in the aural murk.
