“BE QUIET,” yells a member of the very boisterous crowd in Miami’s Hollywood Sportorium as the strains of The Heavenly Music Corporation filters through the PA. “BE QUIET,” the concerned punter continues to urge while another suggests the band play Doctor Diamond. After dispatching The Great Deceiver at a furious pace, the Crims launch into Doctor Diamond whose airy, soaring themes are contrasted by the bullet-staccato vocal delivery. The audio quality of this audience recording is prone to a degree of wow and flutter but once your ears acclimatise, it’s obvious that the band is on fire tonight.
The pitch-drifting vagaries of the source recording are evident during Exiles and Easy Money, the latter containing a particularly droll solo from Fripp. Yet the force with which Fracture is played largely banishes such doubts and reminds one just how brutal this piece was in concert.
On the original tape Starless was irrevocably marred by the wow and flutter which left engineer Alex ‘Stormy’ Mundy a dilemma: Leave it in and let it spoil the flow of the piece? Cut it out entirely and leave it incomplete? Or restore the piece entirely by excising the affected part and replace it with a snip from the 23rd April show. Mr. Stormy chose the latter option and he’s done a great job here, leaving the impact of the piece unaffected. See if you can guess by how much and if you can spot the join.
Following a ‘Some Pussyfooting’ improv acting as a set-up for The Talking Drum, David Cross gets a moment to shine as the track builds to the grinding conclusion of Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part 2. An ace 21st Century Schizoid Man, with a rippling bass solo from Wetton, ushers the show to a crowd-pleasing end.
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