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Very bad sound
From Anonymous of Torun, Poland on .
This kind of recording should be made available for free for fans, but not sold!
The sound is very bad. ;/
live notes
From Richard Wood of san francisco, California on .
Ok, I admit it, I was there. Moles Club, Bath, 1981. In college. dragged along by my friend Simon who knew something truly special was about to happen. You have to bear in mind that Moles was (is?) a basement club in Bath with capacity for 90. Yes. 90. So you got to stand directly in front of the musicians - no stage at Moles. Just you, them, 89 other people. OK... on this night they bust the fire limit by about 30, but you get the idea. Oh... and a fabulously overpowered Bose PA installed by an owner with a strong sense of what really mattered. Needless to say, best show I've ever seen. Ever. Ever. Heard all these songs for the first time that night. Amazing musicianship and creativity unfolding right in front of your eyes. Just not something you see every day. 'Not very tight', someone said. Compared to what?
a special Matte Kudasai
From Matthew Stull of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on .
Matte Kudasai is very special on this gig, to me. the opening guitar lines Belew sound like no other recording. I felt an extra something in them, maybe a fourth dimension or something. if you like that song, you HAVE to hear this version!
Frame by Frame is quite 'brown', but i couldn't imagine trying to work this stuff out for the first time in rehearsal. it sounds a little bit like that. but still it's great... Belew seems a little a little uncertain on "Indiscipline". It's such a great idea use the lyrics in that way, but maybe it took him a few more gigs to lock into the performance of it......I think i like the sound quality of this better than the discipline album!!!haaa haa, but i like old Charlie Parker and Django Reinhart live cuts. and Earthbound too!!!!
SOUND BAD!
From Anonymous of Turin, Italy on .
Really bad sounding: master playing but awful, rather unbearable hissing recording.
The harbinger of things to come
From Joe Prisco of Snohomish, Washington on .
Well, either you liked 80s Crim or you didn't -- no two ways about it. It wasn't the old KC, nor did it try. But there wasn't any other KC to be had, and this band certainly had spirit in abundance. I bought this to hear what Fripp was talking about when he praised this era of the band, and I find his claims well-supported.
Whatever quibbles could be made of the sound are swept away by its value as a document of an auspicious event. Sonically, it's exactly what you'd expect from a bootleg made of a bar band, and not at all unlistenable for all of that. As a document of the newly reorganized band, it's irreplaceable. Plus Tony Levin's remote-clicked photos of the event? For the serious collector, a must-have.
YES!
From Finbar Conlon of Toronto, Ontario on .
Choosing a favourite release by my favourite incarnation of the band would be gut wrenching, but if I ever sat down and actually tried to decide on one, this would definitely be on my list.
What do we get? We get the 80's King Crimson incarnation BEFORE they realized they were King Crimson, playing everything from their upcoming Discipline album and the same two pre-Discipline Crim classics that they ever only played. That's all. There isn't even any banter, short of Adrian Belew laughing and telling the crowd to stop smoking at the beginning of the show.
Nearly everything here from the Discipline album is structurally very different from their eventual studio versions. It's a very interesting listen.
Elephant Talk is underdeveloped, and I'm pretty sure at the time it was titled simply "Talk." It blows every other live version of that song out of the water, not just for freshness of what you're hearing, (the structure of the song being radically different than the standard version) but for sheer oomph.
Frame By Frame is the weakest song in the set (and something screwed up with the source tape during that number too, for better or for worse) and by that I mean to say it is the least extremely awesome. You can hear ONE of the guitarists screwing up (I have no idea who) 'round the time the source tape fails, but so what? It just goes to show how ambitious the material these guys were coming up with was. These four guys had been playing together for, what, three weeks at this point? Also, I really love the fact that the intro here is the far superior intro that we would eventually hear on the Discipline album, and not the other intro we hear in every other live version of the song.
Matte Kudasai here is as sublime as ever, like any Crimson ballad, pre-Belew or otherwise, should be. It's not too different from the eventual studio version, save for the fact that the first verse (which is nearly identical to the second verse anyways) isn't written yet.
Indiscipline here is certainly my favourite version of the song I've ever heard. I actually kind of groaned when I put this CD in my player and saw that this song was among the tracklist. It IS a great song, don't get me wrong, but that's what being a young Crimhead addicted to the Collector's Club does to you... they played this song a lot, which is fine, but when you sit down and enjoy Absent Lovers, VROOOM VROOOM and Neal & Jack & Me back to back, you get four awesome versions of the song, yes, but FOUR nonetheless. So you can imagine my delight and surprise when I heard this crowd, who'd never heard the song before, felt compelled to egg Adrian Belew on and converse with him while he recited the lyrics of the song. "You like it? Do you still like it?" etc. It just sounds so much fresher. You have to listen, if you're a fan of this era of the band, that is.
Thela Hun Ginjeet is VERY interesting here. Gone is the straightforward rhythm of the chorus we'd later here on the album, and instead, we get weird rhythms that keep surprising this set of ears, and I suspect, even would if I knew this version of the song exclusively. And Adrian Belew's storytelling... wow! If I were there, I would've given the guy a freakin' medal!
The Sheltering Sky is played a bit faster than usual here. It's awesome, and sounds pretty similar to what we'd eventually hear on the album aside from the speed difference.
Discipline actually opens the set (and the source tape must've screwed up a bit there too) and sounds pretty much identical to how it would eventually sound on the album. In other words, amazing.
Red does the studio version justice for sure, and it must've been such a surprise and shock for the King Crimson fans who came to see Robert Fripp and Bill Bruford that they actually got to hear this song played live for the first time ever! It's not quite as good as the live renditions this incarnation pulls out later. I'm a huge fan of the rendition on Absent Lovers, with Adrian Belew's zany guitar squeals and Bill Bruford's cheesy synth drums giving the song a different flavour.
And what better way to close the set than with my own personal favourite song of all time, Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part Two? It's awesome as ever. These guys called themselves Discipline yet had the gall to play TWO Crimson covers? Hmm... Maybe Fripp had the name change in mind all along after all? Just a theory.
So, overall, what does it sound like? It sounds like a first show! The tightness level is at pretty much an all-time low for this incarnation, but the oomph level is at 10000000000%. Scary magic.
Awesome
From Jake Reid of Upper Saddle River, New Jersey on .
Very good! I think the sound is pretty good for an audience recording. Very little improv, if that's what you are looking for. A little shy, but a great performance.
historical significance only
From mpc of collingswood, New Jersey on .
to have been at this show must have been a thrill. to have heard red played live for the first time, and what would become the bulk of the the next album by king crimson. this new quartet called discipline is something else! alas, the recording is less than-sub par. i'd go so far as to say one of the worst in the series, but what a night!
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