King Crimson - 2014 NYC (2LP)

For King Crimson, New York was never just a tour-stop – it was a recurring stage in the band’s mythology. Starting with the 1969 Fillmore East breakthrough and running through those early-’70s returns, climaxing in the Larks’-era farewell to that chapter at Central Park in 1974.

And when Crimson kept mutating, the city kept calling them back: Robert Fripp later pointed to the six nights at the Savoy in 1981 (after rehearsals tucked away in the garment district) as a high-water mark, and later line-ups - the Double Trio, Double Duo, and a 2008 quintet with newly recruited Gavin Harrison at the Nokia Theatre continued the Manhattan connection, right up to a major reset at the same venue (by then the Best Buy Theatre) in 2014.

That 2014 band looked like nothing else on the circuit: three drummers lined up across the front - an idea Fripp described as a sudden “point of seeing - turning rhythm into a moving, interlocked engine”.

1. Introductory Soundscape
2. Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (Part I)
3. Pictures of a City
4. A Scarcity of Miracles
5. The Letters
6. The Sailor’s Tale
7. The Hell Hounds of Krim
8. Red
9. Improv: Hoodoo
10. The Talking Drum
11. Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (Part II)
12. VROOOM
13. Coda: Marine 475
14. The Light of Day
15. 21st Century Schizoid Man