King Crimson have announced a new live album titled ‘Music Is Our Friend (Live in Washington and Albany, 2021)’, through DGM on November 19, 2021.
Music Is Our Friend – named after the tour from which the performances were taken – is an official bootleg featuring all of King Crimson’s final performance in North America at Washington in September, 2021. The 2CD set is completed with four pieces from the first concert of the tour’s second leg in Albany. Taken together, these tracks represent both a beginning and an end of a tour that took place despite almost insurmountable issues.
Originally scheduled for 2020, postponed for a full year because of the pandemic, the tour began July in Florida as the latest Covid wave hit and the band moved across the country in a tour bus bubble. Following a two-week break due to scheduling conflicts, they returned to the road again, with the Zappa Band appearing nightly before Crimson. Now facing gigs that had to be moved due to extreme weather, with one venue flooded a day before a concert, an open-air venue in New York transferred to the more familiar Beacon Theatre, and even a band member flown to hospital via helicopter, King Crimson faced a range of challenging conditions. Happily, the band member was fully recovered and no gigs were missed despite the array of setbacks and obstacles. By the time King Crimson reached Washington, the band was in ferocious form with a powerful, energetic set with some arrangements reworked and differing from previous tours.
Featuring a restored middle section of ‘Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part One’ that had not been played since 1973, substantial keyboard arrangements, Tony Levin on upright bass during ‘Neurotica’ giving the piece an extra swing, there’s an emotional set-closer, Starless and an immensely powerful ‘21st Century Schizoid Man’ as an encore.
Pre-order here: https://burningshed.com/store/kingcrimson/king-crimson_music-is-our-friend_2cd
King Crimson: Music Is Our Friend
CD One
1. Introductory Soundscape
2. The Hell Hounds Of Krim
3. Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part I
4. Pictures Of A City
5. The Court Of The Crimson King
6. Red
7. Tony Cadenza Deals It Slitheryacious-To-The-Max
8. Neurotica
9. One More Red Nightmare
10. Indiscipline
CD Two
1. Epitaph
2. Radical Action II
3. Level Five
4. Starless
5. 21st Century Schizoid Man
6. Tony Cadenza Serves It Piping Hot
7. Discipline
8. Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part II
9. Islands
Concert Review: King Crimson “Music Is Our Friend” Tour – Delray Beach, FL
