King Crimson live albums

So many live albums I don't know where to start. Could someone point me in the right direction?

You have a lot of concerts from every period. Wetton era concerts, greg lake era concerts belew era concerts and more.
What do you prefer?

USA is also very good

For the first line-up: Epitaph.

Next line-up that has a live anthology: Ladies of the Road (Islands era).

LTIA era: The Great Deceiver.

All three of them are outstanding and very exhaustive.

The Great Deceiver (now available as 2 double disc sets instead of the original box set), USA and The Nightwatch are all great but there's so much other live stuff worth checking out depending on your preffered era.

Hey, before you go and buy USA, you must seriously consider the "Collectible King Crimson Vol 1." This one is a double album with two concerts, one of them is the very same concert from the USA album. But USA was released with some edited tracks (though I think the newer releases have corrected this), plus the original violins from David Cross were overdubed by some other violin player in studio. Collectible has the real original violins from David Cross without overdubs, and just that makes it much better for me (even though I must admit I have never heard the USA album ). Besides, the other disk from Collectible has it's own charm, including my very favourite version of Starless (easily better than any other live version I have been able to hear, with the jam part better structured and more enjoyable, plus the final main theme reprise much stronger than on other live releases... which are two of the main complaints I have heard people have about the other live versions of this song); as a matter of fact, I like this version of starless much more even than the studio one (I wouldn't really call the studio one the original version, since this live versions with Cross's violins were played first). The other Wetton era live album I have is "The Great Deceiver" collection, and indeed it is very enjoyable, but if you don't want to repeat so much from the same era, I like better "Collectible Vol 1". Also I have not seen any mentions from the Double Trio line-up, which for me was excellent, and plays a lot of the 80's material (the best songs, actually), but somehow with an extra edge that makes me like them so much more. From the Collectible albums, vols 3 and 5 include this line-up. I somehow like vol 3 better (since it is the first I heard and got used to), but both are very good for a sample of that era (I think vol 5 has slightly better sound quality, but if you don't listen to them together you wouldn't really notice); and from this line-up, there is also the "Vroom vroom" album, which I haven't hear yet (I hope to get it some day), but I guess any of the three albums would do just right. And well, of course, from the original line-up there is the epitaph collection of albums, which I only have vol one, and for what I investigated before buying them it is more than enough (vol 2 doesn't offer any new songs, and the sound quality is suposed to be frustrating); and from the "Ilands" line-up there is Ladies of the Road.

Originally posted by Nogbad_The_Bad The Great Deceiver & Heavy ConstruKction are probably my two favorites for ones from different eras but there's loads of great stuff out there. You have to get something with Seizure and Deception Of The Thrush from the recent era. Great Deceiver has some terrific improves on it. Ashbury Park 74 is a great place to start if you don't want all 4 discs of Deceiver.

I found this to be pretty helpful when trying to find one to sample:  http://planetmellotron.com/revking2.htm