Commodore Ballroom

“Good evening to all of you. We're so happy to be back and be on stage again. We’ve had a week away from playing,” announces Belew after The ConstruKction Of Light referring to the cancellation of a couple of outdoor gigs due to bad weather after the band’s appearance in Milwaukee. The old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder might be true. There’s an ebullient, keen-to-be-there aspect to the show.

However, this recording is not without its problems. Once again, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Pt IV is truncated. This time the compact disc recorder on which all of this tour of soundboard recordings was made, gives up the ghost immediately before Belew’s solo, ie much earlier than the last time it happened on the tour at the Milwaukee show mentioned earlier. You can’t beat a 2” reel to reel full of iron oxides for holding onto important memories.


Indeed, when it came to blowing off the cobwebs to make this run of gigs available to download, DGM’s resident engineer/audio hero was sad to discover that either some of the CDR’s were missing completely (hence a couple of gaps in this run of shows) or glitches such as this.

The fact that the Crims had been away from the stage for a few days might also account for four tracks in the ‘encore’ spot, after the formal part of the show has come to an end with LTIA IV. “I’m afraid we don’t know anything else,” quips Belew. After extolling the virtues of Vancouver, Belew goes on to say “even though none of us have the blues, far from it we’re very happy tonight, this is a blues song from King Crimson. Very seldom played” and off they go. For those keeping tabs on this kind of thing, this show contains the very last time Potato Pie would be performed.