King Crimson - Chesterfield Jazz Club, Chesterfield, Britain, 9-6-1969

Here's a 1969 concert from King Crimson. This band has had many personnel changes over the decades, with only band leader Robert Fripp staying as a constant. Out of all the band's variations, I like their first one the best, the band that recorded the 1969 album "In the Court of the Crimson King." This band was phenomenal live, mixing jazz with rock and helping to kick off the prog rock genre. In 1970 though, the band personnel completely changed, with only Fripp remaining. This is probably the best sounding full length concert from the 1969 era of this band.

Note that this concert has been officially released. But I'm posting it here because it hasn't gotten the attention it deserves. No live recordings from the 1969 version of this band were released until decades later. In 1997, a four CD box set of live recordings was released, called "Epitaph." It contained a version of this concert, but it was missing a few songs, and the sound quality wasn't that good. Then in 2010, a much, much bigger box set was released, called "The Complete 1969 Recordings." That's where I sourced this concert from. It's the complete concert, and the sound quality is better. The box set it comes from is made up of 26 CDs! I figure that not many people are going to splurge for a box set that enormous, which is why I liberated this as a stand-alone album.

The sound quality is pretty good, though not excellent. It originally comes from an audience bootleg instead of a soundboard or FM radio broadcast. But honestly, sometimes audience boots can sound as good as many soundboards, and that's the case here. The one big snag is that there is almost no crowd noise. One interesting thing is that some of the songs are not from the band's debut album, "In the Court of the Crimson King." For instance, there is a cover of the Donovan song "Get Thy Bearings." Also, the last half hour is almost entirely instrumental music that doesn't come from the album. 

Note that this concert took place after the debut album was recorded, but about a month before it was released. So the audience probably didn't know any of these songs beforehand. 

This album is an hour and 24 minutes long. 

01 21st Century Schizoid Man (King Crimson)
02 [Why Don't You Just] Drop In (King Crimson)
03 talk (King Crimson)
04 Epitaph (King Crimson)
05 Get Thy Bearings (King Crimson)
06 talk (King Crimson)
07 I Talk to the Wind (King Crimson)
08 The Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson)
09 Mantra [Instrumental] (King Crimson)
10 Travel Weary Capricorn (King Crimson)
11 Improv [Instrumental] (King Crimson)
12 Mars [The Devil's Triangle] [Instrumental] (King Crimson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vM1jL7xd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/q8h3Y7nzttXztUO/file

The cover image is from a concert in Hyde Park, London, on July 5, 1969. The band opened for the Rolling Stones in front of a huge audience of at least a couple hundred thousand people. That's Robert Fripp on guitar on the left and Ian McDonald on saxophone on the right.