Although scheduled to appear at Clacton’s Weeley Festival on Friday 27th August at around 9.00p.m. it wasn’t until midnight that the band took to the stage. Although only these three numbers survive on bootleg, we know they were contracted for an hour and eyewitness accounts suggest that the set would’ve included Formentera Lady, Ladies of the Road, Cirkus, Sailors Tale, Court, Cadence and Cascade and Schizoid Man.
At the end of Pictures you can hear the crowd shouting “Doctor”. Mike Ferguson, who was in the crowd shared his memory of the event with the BBC. “King Crimson playing 'Cirkus', a rousing rendition, but someone was ill in the crowd and people were calling out for help, and it was all sounding quite desperate - all of this building to a crescendo as the music itself built to a climax. Eventually, someone shone the tower lights in the direction of the shouting just as the music reached a peak.”
Claire Whitaker was also at the festival and shared this observation “My lasting memory is trying to sleep under the stars in the main arena and listening to King Crimson playing the Devil's Triangle in the middle of the night!”. Judging from the mayhem of the Devil’s Triangle captured for posterity here, it seems like that Claire wouldn’t have been the only one whose sleep was interrupted that night.
Although scheduled to appear at Clacton’s Weeley Festival on Friday 27th August at around 9.00p.m. it wasn’t until midnight that the band took to the stage. Although only these three numbers survive on bootleg, we know they were contracted for an hour and eyewitness accounts suggest that the set would’ve included Formentera Lady, Ladies of the Roa...
Obviously it's incomplete and there's only three tracks from the performance, therefore the interest in this recording can be seen as limited. The real "fun" here, to my ears is this: if you want to hear a particulary undisciplined and disrepectful audience, go for this download ! It's complete with talks, laughs, conversations... and makes for a good sample of the cheerful atmosphere of a British festival in the countryside in the good ol' days of 1971.
(I believe there should have been some ...
Obviously it's incomplete and there's only three tracks from the performance, therefore the interest in this recording can be seen as limited. The real "fun" here, to my ears is this: if you want to hear a particulary undisciplined and disrepectful audience, go for this download ! It's complete with talks, laughs, conversations... and makes for a good sample of the cheerful atmosphere of a British festival in the countryside in the good ol' days of 1971.
(I believe there should have been some French people not far from the recording device, because I can recognise some very french "Ouais!" shouts instead of "Yeahs!" in between songs) ;)
