With only one more date on this leg of the European tour to go, King Crimson wound up in the Miles Davis Hall at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In a weekend programme that included artists as diverse as Joe Jackson, Laurie Anderson and post-rock outfit, Mogwai (amongst others), Crimson served up something of a mixed show of their own with energy levels fluctuating in several different directions.

It starts off well enough with an incisive Level Five and a truly cutting version of TCOL. Whilst preparing the show for download, Mister Stormy declared this version was one of the best he’s heard - and he’s heard a few in his time. Equipment problems momentarily dog EleKtriK and cause Dinosaur to teeter slightly.

In his diary, Fripp puts some of the blame for the shifting nature of the show down to the fact it was being officially filmed by the Festival. “An evening of clams, clunkers, recoveries - all on film.” Perhaps the most spectacular of these can be heard during the coda of an otherwise superb rendition LTIA Pt.IV: following the drum roll and pause, both guitarists enter at exactly the same time but in positions on the fretboard not normally considered mutually compatible.

With Adrian declaring to Robert that he considers this to be his worst performance in 9 years of Crimsonising, and Pat M diving off-stage at the end of a savage Red to remonstrate with a punter who shot off a load of flashes, this may well be one of the most controversial Crimson shows.

Mr. Stormy warns that the phasing sound heard briefly at the beginning of TPTBIII (or Deception of the Thrush as we call it in pounds, shillings and pence) is not the result of an audio glitch but as a result of an open microphone in the vicinity of Mr. Mastelotto.