The Collectable King Crimson Vol.1: Live in Mainz & Live in Asbury Park

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Customer reviews

review by: SAM of the 70's date: 2008-02-05 rating:
Great but . . . .
This is KC in full battle dress. Wetton and Bruford are simply on fire and play with the kind of energy that would be impossble to capture in a studio. There is a good mix of popular tracks and improv, certainly enough to tempt the KC fan. However, I have to mention one major disappointment. Back in the mid seventies KC released a live lp called USA (no longer available). It had a fantatic improv track called Asbury Park that featured a brilliant solo from Fripp but that annoyingly faded out seemingly mid-flow! It turns out that most of the USA material was recorded at the Asbury Park gig featured on this album, hence my delight in seeing this album with the full unedited version of Asbuty Park on it. But oh what disappointment. This recording is dominated by an abysmal solo by Cross that completely drowns out Fripp and destroys all the magic of the USA release. It turns out that Fripp thought it was abysmal also as on the USA release he cut out Cross and overdubbed it with violin work from Eddie Jobson. So Fripp was right all along. But if, as I did, you were hoping to hear Asbury Park in its full unedited version, you will but you will be sorely disappointed and like me you will look forward to the day USA is releasewd on CD.

In the meantime there's plenty on this cd to keep KC fans happy.

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review by: mightyagamemnon date: 2007-09-04 rating:
Best of the Crimson Bootlegs
The first incarnation of King Crimson - though in truth the band evolved even during this stage with massive personnel changes - occurred between 1969 when they releaesed In the Court of the Crimson King until 1975 when a last studio album (Red) was released and also an edited version of a concert in Asbury Park (USA). They released nine albums during this phase - 7 studio albums and 2 live - and these nine albums are the starting point for anyone discovering or re-discovering the band. Different fans have their favourite albums (I preferred Islands and USA but there was a concensus in the seventies that perhaps the later albums were better - i.e. Lark's Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black, Red and USA. And for anyone in agreement, The Collectable King Crimson Volume 1 is simply a must have - though owners of USA be a little cautious.

The Live in Mainz is a previously unreleased concert featuring improvisations highlighting the magnificent musicianship of Robert Fripp and Bill Bruford (David Cross - excellent violinist - and John Wetton - bassist and vocals - make up the band). Tracks from Lark's Tongues, Starless and Bible Black, and Red enable Wetton's distinctive vocals to be showcased, with Fripp's technical and innovative guitarwork always present. Overall it is an excellent concert - good quality recording and worth the (budget) price on its own.

The second disk (LIve in Asbury Park) is a bit of KC history as if forms the basis of the live album USA. The original USA contained six tracks from this concert - an 'anniversary' reissue then added 'Fracture' and 'Starless'. But the way in which this disk scores is that it contains full versions of Asbury Park and Easy Money - instead of the edited down versions on USA. Much hair was ripped out in the seventies over the truncating of Easy Money which, after the main song section was over, slipped into one of the most magnificent guitar solos of the era. Why fade out? No one knew. Now we can hear the whole lot - full versions of both songs, plus the other six tracks. So why did they fade out during editing in the seventies? Beats me - a moron with a tacky view of what would be commercial? Anyway, all's well that end's well. USA - one of the great live albums of the seventies - is available in its entirety and it is magnifient. Strongly recommended.


review by: date: 2006-10-04 rating:
A wealth of music
Offical King Crimson "bootlegs" have been available over the years from the band's own website. This is an attempt to bring these products to a wider audience and I was initially a little annoyed that I was expected to buy something previously released as half of this package. Then a bit of common sense kicked in when I realised that it was priced to make this fact irrelevant.

With such a large amount of live Crimson material available to dedicated fans over the years, it was still tempting to skip this one. That would have been a big mistake, because the Asbury Park performance is as good as anything I have heard before, both in content and sound quality.

This is therefore a must for the faithful. For everyone else, it is an inexpensive way to find out what you have been missing

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