El miercoles 28 de septiembre de 1994, un grupo de 10 o 15 fans de King Crimson, que sabiamos que estaban ensayando en PRIX D'DAMI, estabamos en el bar de la planta baja, cuando de repente Robert Fripp bajó por las escaleras y nos hizo señas para que subieramos al primer piso donde estaba el escenario en el que estaban ensayando para los conciertos oficiales que comenzaban al día siguiente. Esta "prueba" de KC nos convertió en "Los POCOS" afortunados del mundo en presenciar el PRIMER CONCIERTO DE KING CRIMSON LUEGO DE UNA DÉCADA. Un hito imborrable. Comparto algunas fotos: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1568364340177281&set=a.135952590085137

I absolutely love this. Particularly Salisbury 1 II. It's really quite peaceful, and unique. Check it out.

This show was my first KC event and it was great. I have the answer for Jordon Clifford's question about the short Easy Money. John Kirk posted that the opening act was Gino Vanelli I don't remember who opened but I do remember the crowd that stayed didn't fill Rec Hall. There were disruptive people who weren't patient with the improv's. When you listen to this release ( I have the disc from Road to Red) you will notice that while Robert addressed the crowd he asked "Is There Life Out There?" which became the title of the improv that followed. On the disc this lasts 12:13, I can tell you some in the crowd lost patience and were yelling for Easy Money so they got it, but only for 2:20 and then the band continued to improvise on the other side of it. I told this story for years ofter on how it must have been annoying to the band to be in the middle of creating music on the spot but they had to play the "hit' song the drunks wanted. My theory was proven correct when the "Great Deceiver" box set came out and the Improv titles were revealed. The title for the song following "Easy Money" was "It Is For You, But Not for Us",that says it all!

When I first heard the Starless and Bible Black album in 1992, well, I was one of the many persons who was deceived by the sound of the recording, thinking that.....ummm....... Actually I wasn't even thinking at all. I just UNTHINKINGLY assumed that it was like any other album in the catalog by the group that would have been recorded in a sound studio. How little did I know? How naive of me. It wasn't until a couple of years later that I read Eric Tamm's groundbreaking little "guidebook" (published in 1990 but read by me in 1993-1994), which revealed the truth about the way the tracks were recorded and assembled. Even those early diehard Crimheads in 1974 couldn't have known that the radio broadcast of the November 1973 Amsterdam concert which they were excitedly taping for later bootleg production/exploitation was in actuality the SAME SOURCE CONCERT from which the (at the time) latest KC album SABB took many of its most interesting tracks. Those tracks were never included in the broadcast. However, it wasn't until 1997, a few years later still, that I found out that one specific track, my favorite off that album, the eponymous title track,was actually "edited in 1974 due to the constraints of vinyl". When I read that little statement at the very bottom of the very last page of the booklet accompanying the CD for The Night Watch {1997} release, I said to myself, "Now self, I do believe that you have found your 'special purpose' in this life. And that is, FIND A RECORDING, SOMEWHERE, OF THAT ORIGINAL UNEDITED/EXTENDED IMPROV." It was like a message from the ancient gods being transmitted or beamed down to me, just to me and no one else. So, if that razorburned piece of missing magnetic tape just happens to fall into your lap one day in the near or not so near future, you know who to get ahold of.

Growing up in southern Delaware it's amazing the music I was able to be exposed to. In August '72, I went to see Yes at the Spectrum in Philly only to see a straight haired blonde on drums... Back in the day of no internet, how was I to know Bill Bruford had left Yes 2 weeks earlier! I was devastated. Heart of the Sunrise with Jon playing a tambourine instead of Bruford's outrageous high hat. Of course, Chris Squire did not disappoint! Less than 2 years later, driving my '64 Buick with 3 friends in tow, we headed to the Kennedy Centre to see the mighty King Crimson with one of the greatest line ups ever. There we were in the lobby with several folks in Tuxedos waiting for the Classical Concert in the other hall. Quite genteel and very nice actually. Steeleye Span opened and were great. Between bands my mates ran off to the restroom while I sat and watched the roadies roll out the riser that had Bill's set on it. I was already blown away. Needless to say the show was absolutely fantastic. The band was in their muscular glory and the hall was outstanding for sound. Bruford was spot on and the performance was followed by several live shows over the years.

Since sometime during the Spring of 1999, upon first hearing an echoey, somewhat muddied C+ audience cassette tape recording of this performance at the old Shrine Auditorium in South L. A. on 19/6/74 (when I was actually 3 days away from turning exactly half-a-year old!), I thought to myself, what a gorgeous, almost swaying, relaxed 6-minute improv called 'The Silver Walnut' spilling out of a high-pitched eardrum-splitting guitar shriek ending to 'Easy Money', now that DGM is releasing (gradually) an archive of 'blast from the past' recordings of performances, given that this particular location holds a position so near and dear to my heart, having lived out 30 years of a troubled young adulthood in a nearby suburb (and w/KC as a go-to stress reliever for all of those years), I thought to myself, it sure would be just heavenly, and nifty, and grand, and boss, radical, cool, da bomb, awesome, real swell, groooovy man, phat, sweet..... To officially release this with any sort of improvement to the sound. And do you know what? To this day, over 20 years later, I STILL continue to think to myself, it sure would be just heavenly, and nifty, and grand...... P. S. Esp. since an improved early-generation copy of the show 100% complete has emerged since then from the deep. I lost my digital-only copy in what can only be described as a totally self-produced completely destructive tragedy about 7 years ago, and have been hoping since then that DGM might.... just possibly..... Pretty please?