February 19, 1972 - Chicago, IL - Arie Crown Theater
Context
The provenance of this gig is unknown. It’s from a date where the band may or may not have been in either Chicago or Detroit and we only have two tracks. Cirkus and Groon.
This is the first recording that we come across which originates from my birth region. I’ve seen King Crimson, a ProjeKct, a Crafty, or a Fripp performance in Chicago a total of 14 times which is nearly half of my live performance exposure to the world of Crim & Fripp. Listening to a recording from before I was born at a time of my parents early adulthood miles from where they were living is a trip for me.
Listening Notes
Cirkus
We start with some mellotron tuning and after having dealt with the poorly EQ’ed Detroit 18 show it sounds refreshingly clear. The low-end of Boz’s vocal is initially a bit boomy but this goes away and there’s a wonderful open-ness about this vocal.
The sonics here are good by comparison to most of what we’ve waded through from recordings on this tour. It’s a shame there isn’t a full show with this sound.
I’m not sure if it’s the improved acoustics or not, but Boz’s performance here feels more inspired than others. And this piece is approaching the majesty and menace that it strives for more than any performance I’ve heard from this early 1972 performance.
Fripp (I think it’s RF) even plays a bit with the mellotron phrasing between the second and third verses. Collins stretches some of this accompaniments further than usual.
More mellotron and electric piano theme-bending and it’s hard for me to believe that this is chronologically part of the same North American tour I’ve been listening to. Potentially later? Or maybe something mis-labeled from 1971? Nevertheless it might be my favorite performance from this stretch so far.
It’s greeted by what sounds like a half-empty room’s applause. Unfortunate.
Groon
Groon The fantastic! Groon The Never Boring! Again the sound here is great relative to other recordings from the tour. Mel adds some interesting squeaks during the head of the piece. As we move into the improv Robert presses down on the wah pedal and begin comping under Mel’s smooth solo.
An interesting stereo pan happens in this recording as Mel shifts from the left to the right channel a bit and back again.
This is a really funky jam. Wallace and Burrell are leaning into the backbeat throughout Mel’s solo. It’s hard not to imagine a room full of hippies swaying and dancing to this. Having been in the Arie Crowne it’s a decent sized theater and the front of the room can either be seated or standing. Assuming that the band was still sharing the bill on this show I find it likely that a mix of the faithful and the lay people would have been at the stage to watch this and likely on their feet. It’s easy to imagine the band feeding off some groove energy coming from the front of the room.
Collins’s solo gives way to Fripp doing some wonderful jazzy runs and lines. He breaks them up with some upstroke chord barks on the back beat as well. This is Fripp the guitarist calling back on his dance hall jazz band roots. This has groove and meat and strut.
We drift into the drum solo. This one begins frenzied from Wallace. There’s no slow build up where. Fast and rapid tom runs while moving the beat around on the snare and dancing on top of the hi hat pedal.
It stretches into this great space where he hammers away at the double floor toms with a kind of short pa-ta-ta-Tat perididdle falling backwards through the solo. Soon it’s all paradiddle that fades down that rises into a static phoenix of VCS3 synthesized drums. This is met with applause as whirring drum sounds begin to fill the room. Pretty good dramatic intro here of this effort.
There’s a great re-entry from Fripp really climbing up to meet Wallace’s frenzy here. Collins is in there too but sounds distant in the right channel. This all comes to a great climactic ending which is met with enthusiastic applause.
Either Boz or Mel remarks to the crowd, ““Mr. Ian Wallace. The man of the night.“˚
Purchase King Crimson Live at Arie Crown Theater in Chicago, IL from DGM Live