Teatro Romano

King Crimson hasn’t played too many Roman amphitheaters in its long and distinguished career but here in Verona, the crowd assembled on the broad semi-circular steps looking down on the stage give the Crims an enthusiastic thumbs up.

The bristling Level Five roars like a lion as it establishes a tangible presence in the space. It’s a track that could almost be viewed as a Pat Mastelotto signature piece with its mix of thunderous kit drumming and all manner of electronic all-sorts flying around the stage. Similarly, in Oyster Soup, he can be heard placing all kinds of on-the-fly additions into the mix.

Sadly not all of the show is in the archive, but the second half has been added via a bootleg sent in by John Kimber. The evening itself was especially hot and the on-stage temperature was causing even road-hardened veterans to feel like they were in meltdown.

Fripp’s view of the sonic aspects of the gig was recorded in his diary: “The sound was strong, despite a DB limit, the audience were in the main well-dressed, polite & generous. Astonishing new discoveries in the Clams Crimsonique department. Perhaps a contributory factor was the heat. The players were wilting and there were mechanical consequences of this. In One Time the tuning between Ade & myself shifted, the guitars' also wilting, so I had to follow him as well as possible by wibbling the whammy bar. My meters were reading OK! but my ears were twitching.”