B'BOOM (OFFICIAL BOOTLEG - LIVE IN ARGENTINA)

Robert Fripp once said that if an album is like a dinner, and a gig is like a hot date, then this band were always much better in the clinches. This album is quite a good example of this bands collective skills in the live arena. The sound is top notch and the performances throughout better the studio versions. And well, the songs, are well, fab. Worth a listen? You're darn right.

Over the years i've learned that you cannot complain or critic an album of King Crimson. This band has proved to the whole world that they know the right formula of annoy or please the listener, it's easy to understand, the focus of the compositions break the rule of normality, and every note fits perfect with the next one, even if your first sight dissagree with your thoughts. A "live" experience is basic to understand what's going on with any band, and a live "revisted" experience is better because this record is a statement of great musicianship and great composing that had survived the time test. To me this record is more naive and less planned than some others, so, is a very pleasant album to any fan of the band or just for the curious listener.

Dude...this live performance is great, with all the new Crimson technology in its music. Very complex. You can not really complain about any King Crimson live performance. Especially with this one because of the sound quality being great. This is definately worth the money though becasue of their being so much material. I would reccommend this live cd to any King Crimson listener, new or old because with this particular cd, it doesn't really matter what era you like.

I remember the introduction of double-trio King Crimson was a big event, even the local Pravda published a large report about "Thrak" with musician interviews. However then new things like free internet download possibilities from their concerts, along with "THRaKaTTaK" CD, Live in Japan video gigs, (same concert as on Deja VROOM) and later dozens of official live concert recordings caused the whole issue suffer inflation to my interest. On the time of releasing I believe this CD had its meaning, and especially for those who attended the Argentina concert I can guess the recording is dear. To me I fear it is however same old B'Booming with very little meaning.

This is a live recording from one of the early concerts of the six-man lineup from the mid-90s, released after Fripp realized that a poorly recorded bootleg of a concert was making the rounds (hence the "official bootleg" moniker). The four-piece lineup from the 80s is augmented by Trey Gunn's Warr Guitar and second drummer Pat Mastelotto. The two new members are still finding their comfort zone in the band, and overall the band's performace is still a bit uncertain, with the two new members sometimes finding it tough to find room for their own contributions. Still, this is a fine album, very well recorded, and nicely performed, though I'd like to hear recordings from later in this iteration's career when they had their sealegs a bit more underneath them.

"Vrooom," a slashing instrumental, opens the set, followed by fan favorite "Frame by Frame" -- this particular performance isn't the band's best, but it works well enough. "Sex Sleep Eat Dream" is a typical whimsical Belew offering, with some trademark sonic chaos expertly handled by the six performers. "Red" is typically harsh and metallic, but the band slogs a bit through this version; six members are perhaps too many for this piece of controlled frenzy. "One Time" is a highlight of the band's softer side. "B'boom" is a fabulously frenzied drum piece, with Mastelotto laying down a thunderous rhythm and Bruford blasting solos over the top. That leads directly into "Thrak," a stentorian instrumental with deep, howling guitar chords smashing through the furniture, with a short, subdued improv in the middle. A lovely but all-too-short "Two Sticks" improv with Gunn and Levin goes into a double-shot of 80's favorites, the whimsy and feedback of "Elephant Talk" and the screaming guitar/drum assault of "Indiscipline"

A variant on the first track, "Vrooom Vrooom," opens the second CD, followed by the always-lovely "Matte Kudasai" with Belew's trademark seagull guitar. A lengthy instrumental from the 70s band, "The Talking Drum," is my personal favorite from this album; this song showed me just what a consummate musician Trey Gunn is, and what his contributions to the band would be. He opens the track with a stunningly lovely, almost ethereal Warr guitar solo, later joined by Fripp; the two give the audience a beautifully intertwined guitar duet, augmented by Levin's bass harmonics and airy washes of sound from Belew, before diving headfirst into the howling headwinds of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic II," a favorite piece of KC savagery. After a breath, the band serves up the pretty, if lightweight, "Heartbeat," which earns its place among the other songs by wont of getting some FM airplay, followed by the minor dance floor hit "Sleepless," reworked as a percussion feature by Bruford and Mastelotto. As the concert comes close to its end, the audience gets to hear a work in progress, "People," a funky Belew-Levin track that is more fully developed on the "Thrak" studio album. Unexpectedly, the album ends with different renditions of two earlier-performed pieces, "B'Boom" and "Thrak."

There are problems with this album, primarily because the band hasn't yet found its groove. Mastelotto in particular seems wasted at times, finding it hard sometimes to find his place in particular songs; Gunn sometimes suffers the same fate. (Later both band members will become more fully integrated into the music.) And sometimes the band's versions of their earlier songs, performed perfectly by a four-piece, seem almost lugubrious when performed by six musicians. Thankfully, this is rare. Although this is not an absolutely essential album to anyone's KC collection, by virtue of the fact that it is one of the few albums completely devoted to live recordings of the six-piece band that was released to the mass market, this album deserves space on your shelf if you have any real love for the band. Not the album I'd use to introduce a new listener to the KC oeuvre, but for the devotee, a necessity. The version of "The Talking Drum," with the stunning duet of Fripp and Gunn, alone makes it worth the purchase price, though there is much to like about the rest of the album as well.

This double live record was recorded in the Broadway in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1994. As KING CRIMSON was want to do, they played their new material (which would come out the next year on the "Thrak" album) before a live audience before recording it in the studio. As Fripp relates in the liner notes, an Italian bootleg company sent a man to Argentina to record their live shows and then sell them in the UK. The sound quality of these bootleg recordings were "appalling".This prompted the band to release this official live bootleg recording that sounds fantastic by the way.This is an early document from October 1994 of the "double trio" era of this band. These shows represent the first time in over 10 years that KING CRIMSON played live before an audience. 16 of the 19 tracks are taken from the eighties albums or "Thrak".

Disc one starts off with "Vroom" with it's intricate guitar melodies as well as the screaming and heavy guitar work in this terrific instrumental. "Frame By Frame" from "Discipline" sounds better here live than on the studio album. I love this song, the vocals and guitar sound great. "Sex,Sleep, Eat, Drink, Dream" is good, but "Red" is far superior."One Time" is a song where Belew shines. "B'Boom" is atmospheric with drums and percussion, that becomes really impressive after 5 minutes. "Thrak" is very heavy with some strange noises. Great tune ! "Improv-Two Sticks" is a short atmospheric tune. "Elephant Talk" is again where Belew shows off his vocal talent, he's so funny. "Indiscipline" builds and Belew is funny again. I love the explosion of sounds that happens a couple of times in this song. This ends the first disc and half of these songs would appear on the "Thrak" album.

The second disc starts off with "Vrooom Vrooom" and it's goood goood ! Mellotron before 3 minutes. Great instrumental."Matte Kudasai" is a lazy song with vocals and strange sounds. "The Talking Drum" has such a cool sound to it. The percussion and guitar all sound beautiful as it blends into another song taken from the "Larks' Tongues In Aspic" album called "Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part II". The latter song is a heavy duty powerhouse at times. Amazing tune ! "Heartbeat" taken from "Beat" sounds good, especially Belew's vocals and guitar playing.The audience sounds like a crowd from a soccer game in the intro. "Sleepless" from "Three Of A Perfect Pair" opens with some awesome percussion, but the vocals remind me of THE TALKING HEADS (even live !). Some nice lazy guitar solos that become intense toward the end of the song. "People" opens with some great bass lines before Fripp does his thing 4 minutes in. "B'Boom (reprise)" is again very atmospheric with some terrific percussion. "Thrak" is frightfully heavy.

This is a must have for myself for a number of reasons, but the main thing is the triumphant return of KING CRIMSON to the live stage once again.

An excellent "double-trio" live performance!

I have always found the music of King Crimson is very intriguing my mind especially with Fripp's pentatonic notes in his guitar playing style. Fripp is also a great marketer especially during the period when the band employed 6 musicians : Adrian Belew (vocals, guitar); Robert Fripp (guitar, Mellotron); Trey Gunn (Chapman Stick, background vocals); Tony Levin (acoustic & electric basses, background vocals); Bill Bruford, Pat Mastelotto (percussion). Under this line-up he strategically marketed the band as a "double-trio" band - something that had never happened before. The result is quite unique music which I previously did not believe on how having two bass players? But Fripp and friends proved it to the fans.

This album was recorded live at the Broadway, Buenos Aires, Argentina in October 1994. The band's dynamic live performances have produced wide variety bootleg tapes featuring all eras of the group's existence. Their October 1994 tour of South America, resulted the only official bootleg titled as B'BOOM. The bootleg was digitally recorded from the mainboard. Because of this, the recorded sounds are exactly how the microphones heard the performance, not how the audience heard it. This produces a very detailed live record due to the sound engineer's unique talent.

On Disc One there great combination of tracks of the 90s era of King Crimson plus the 80s (Discipline album). The opening instrumental "Vrooom" demonstrates how talented the musicians involved in this record performing their own individual duties. It also happens beautifully with other instrumental tracks like Red, Thrak. Adrian Belew's singing style is crisp and clear through tracks like "Frame By Frame" and "Elephant Talk". On Disc Two, the music is consistently managed in excellent way by the band. Tracks like "Matte Kudasai", "The Talking Drum", "Heartbeat" and "Sleepless" are performed with great mood.

Overall, this is an excellent performance by King Crimson "Double Trio" line up with songs spanning from early years until the 90s. I recommend you to have this album. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

In the liner notes, Fripp says that this release was in response to a poor sounding bootleg of the same concert being sold. Fot that, I compliment Fripp for giving us a better sounding (not perfect) version of the same concert, in contrast to releases by Frank Zappa and ELP, just putting out the same bad recordings on their own labels.

This recording of King Crimson, very early in their double-trio incarnation, is quite good. They played a number of songs from the VROOM and THRAK releases (What's with the obsession with onomatopeia?), a peppering of songs from the eighties band (all of whom are in this group), and the usual suspects from the Wetton band. - (Now I know Fripp has an aversion to playing the old "hits" from groups that functionally do not exist anymore, but what's wrong with bringing out different compositions, and showing how this group can interpret them?)

The performances are great. The newer songs show a more bombastic, more exciting King Crimson than the eighties band. The eighties songs, with an extra drummer and stick player, gain depth that they didn't have previously. And the seventies tracks, especially Red, are just awesome

A good live album, but that's it!

King Crimson needs no introduction, so this time I will not talk about the band's background or anything like that. I have had the luck of seeing them live twice, however I was not lucky enough to see a Double-Trio performance, a KC face that I adore and would have loved to witness. Actually, in their Vroom Vroom live album, one of the CD's was recorded here in Mexico City, but I was a child and didn't know about good music at that moment.

In 1995, people from Argentina had the luck of having KC on stage, and also, of having a live KC album, which is actually a bootleg, but as the same title says, it is an official bootleg, so go figure. This album was released back in 1995, and as you can imagine features mostly songs from their "Thrak" album, a different record that shares several critics, positive and negative.

Well, my first experience with live performances like this was the above mentioned "Vroom Vroom" one, though honestly I knew first the video, and later bought the CD. I really fell in love with it, and I don't really know if that has something to do with my feelings towards this one. What I mean, is that this "B'Boom" album did not do much to me, I enjoy it, but nothing more.

This is a two-CD bootleg. In the first one you will listen to some "Discipline" songs such as "Elephant Talk" or "Frame by Frame", and also a very nice performance of the legendary "Red"; along of course, with some "Thrak" tracks (pun intended). The second one has nice versions of "The Talking Drum" and "Lark's Tongues in Aspic Part II", and a couple of "Beat" songs. The performances are always great, they don't fail, but I feel it repetitive and in moment I am lost in the music, but not lost in the good way, but lost looking for an answer.

Sometimes it is not easy to explain some feelings, and most difficult to make the readers understand it, but well. For what I've said, I only give this CD three stars.

Enjoy it!

Released in a rush as a "Beat the Boots" measure by Crimson - an inferior audience tape of the same gigs had been circulating on CD at a frankly absurdly inflated price - B'Boom is derived from the soundboard tapes and was thrown out onto the market in a hurry without much tidying-up for the sake of suppressing the bootleg release. As such, the sound is good, but not top-notch quality.

It's notable that whilst this release is included on the THRAK boxed set, it's as a little extra something on one of the Blu-Ray discs, and the boxed set puts more effort into showcasing other live gigs from this particular Crimson lineup. Ultimately, this was never intended for public release, and was only put out on the market because someone decided that they wanted to misuse their personal taping of the gig to royally rip off King Crimson fans.

Review #39

Another great performance of the Crimson King, this time in Argentina

"B'boom" was recorded in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1995 being part of the "THRAK" tour. The double trio of BRUFORD-MASTELOTTO-GUNN-BELEW-FRIPP-LEVIN played several nights and in this album, they compiled some of their best performances. The album that features songs from the "Larks' tongues in aspic", "Red", "Discipline", "Three of a perfect pair" and obviously "THRAK" albums is a very cool example of how great the band (with this line-up) could be on stage.

I have not too much left to say about this album, except that this is a great recording in which we can appreciate the mere essence of the group in the THRAK-era.