Arguably the definitive work on this seminal sax hero (a hero of Mel Collins to name but one), co-author Chris is also a Crimhead. This morning Chris fired off a list of his favourite releases from DGMLive (and beyond) in response to the request for next-step suggestions from gb-er, Margetts.
This seems like a good opportunity to open up the discussion about people's favourites and why they're on the list. Please don't just send in a simple list - clue us in on why a particular gig works for you. So, keep them coming and every once in a while we'll feature one of them on the front page here - as an extra incentive we may just throw in a spot prize as well.
In the meantime, here's a few of Chris DeVito's favourite things.
1971: April 12-15, 1971,
Zoom Club.
I have April 12 and 15 and will download the others as time and cash allow. Great audio, interesting performances. This is my least favorite incarnation of Crimson, but I really enjoy listening to these recordings. Strong drumming from Ian Wallace, and Mel Collins is great -- gotta put the sax back into rock!
1972: November 10, 1972,
Technical College, Hull, England.
Mediocre but listenable audio quality (it’s an audience tape); great music. But arguably, any of the other late-’72 downloads are just as good. I also recommend the KC Collectors’ Club Live at the Zoom Club, October 13, 1972 (CLUB20), which I had on bootleg for many years and happily replaced with this vastly superior version.
1973: June 23, 1973, Richards Club, Atlanta,
Georgia.
Another bootleg bites the dust. Fantastic performance, very good sound.
October 6, 1973, Arlington, Texas.
Audio quality is a notch or two below 6/23/73, but a great concert.
October 23, 1973, Apollo, Glasgow, Scotland.
GREAT audio quality (despite the noisy audience); GREAT music. My favorite version of “Fracture” (this week, anyway).
1974: March 27, 1974, Augsburg, Germany.
Great audio; aggressive music.
June 27, 28, 29, and 30, 1974; July 1, 1974.
Get ’em all, in whatever format you can. And of course get the 4-CD box The Great Deceiver (currently available as two 2-CD sets); it’s essential.
1981:
November 23, 1981, Roxy, Los Angeles.
One of my all-time favorite downloads. An amazingly good-sounding audience tape, nice atmosphere, fantastic music.
1982:
Hard to choose. I’d recommend CLUB26,
Live in Philadelphia, July 30, 1982, as arguably overall best
sound/best music. CLUB4 (Cap D’Agde), CLUB32 (Munich), and CLUB37
(Pier, New York) are almost as good.
Download: Asbury Park, July 31, 1982, is a great concert with great sound. (Berkeley, which is very popular, leaves me cold; the audio has a scrunched and distant quality to it and the performance doesn’t seem as good as the other available concerts. It’s rarely in my listening rotation. But that’s just my opinion.)
1984: June 22, 1984, Hoffman Estates, Illinois.
Audio quality is middling (sort of a fizzy sound, a bit thin but listenable); performance is tremendous.
1995-’96:
CLUB31, LIVE AT THE WILTERN, July 1, 1995; November 2, 1995, Houston (download); Shepherd’s Bush, London, July 1, 1996 (download and Collectable Volume Three).
ProjeKct One: December 1-4, 1997, Jazz Cafe, London.
I can’t pick any one of these nights over the others; eight great sets of improvised music. Indispensable.
ProjeKct Four: October 23, 1998 (Boulder); November 2, 1998 (7th Note, San Francisco).
ProjeKct One’s evil electronica twin. All of P4 is worth getting, but these two are my favorites.
2000: The 3-CD compilation Heavy ConstruKction is the
best intro to the summer 2000 concerts.
My favorite concert from 2000, though, is October 24, 2000, House of Blues -- great versions of the Construkction of Light tunes, including my favorite “FraKctured,” plus a powerful “Heroes.”
2001:
The Level Five ep is a great if too-brief taste of the summer 2001 tour (and hey, why don’t we have any full concerts from this tour, either as downloads or club releases?). December 9, 2001: this is a great download of the “transition” band between The ConstruKction of Light and The Power To Believe
2003:
March 14
(Chicago) and April 20 (Nagoya) are tremendously fun concerts, well
worth downloading and repeated listenings. But the essential 2003
concert is November 14, 2003, Kingston, New York.
Crushingly powerful and beautiful music, the definitive live statement of this lineup. The Power To Believe is its definitive studio recording and one of the essential Crimson studio albums -- along with In The Court of the Crimson King, Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Red, and Discipline).
The 2-DVD set, Eyes Wide Open, is tremendous fun, and a great audiovisual document of the 2000-2003 quartet.
2006: ProjeKct Six, EAST COAST LIVE. Mission Possible!
2008: August 7, 2008, Park West, Chicago.
Could have developed into a whole new style of Crimsoning with the rhythm section finally taking its rightful place as the front line. Fripp evidently felt differently and scuttled the band (for the time being, anyway). Play this concert on a nice bass-heavy system, crank it up, and enjoy the thunder.
