HYDE PARK, LONDON, 1969

On this disc we can hear the famous Hyde Park concert, where King Crimson played in front of some 500,000 people as opening act for the Rolling Stones. It all happened on July 5, 1969. They played very well. The concert opens with two tracks from their debut album, which at the time of this concert had yet to be released. First "21st Century Schizoid man" and then the mellotron drenched "In the Court of the Crimson King". The next track, "Get thy bearings" was written by Donovan. It's a jazzy track with great soloing by McDonald and a bluesy, guitar led ending. Next is a short and beautiful version of "Epitaph". This is followed by "Mantra", also a short tune. It sounds spooky and has a beautiful flute sound. Without noticing this track turns into the next track, "Travel Weary Capricorn". This is also a very jazzy tune. The concert ends with "Mars" (written by Holst). This music would be used for the track "The Devils Triangle" on the album "In the Wake of Poseidon".

As bonus tracks there is an interview with the members of the first King Crimson incarnation at the time Epitaph was released (March 15, 1997). But more interesting there is an instrumental version of "21st Century Schizoid Man", recorded at Morgan Studio on June 12, 1969.

This is an interesting release. It is one of the first concerts by the band that helped to define progressive rock. We all know King Crimson had several incarnations, but the first is clearly one of the best. The sonic quality of this release is acceptable and comparable to the Epithaph releases. The performance is great and the instrumental Schizoid bonus track is a real treat.

Since the Epitaph collection has been released, there is actually very little here that has not been heard before in other performances, save for some short improvised bits. All of the songs have been released (from other performances). That does not matter a whole lot, given the rarity of live performance recordings from this lineup.

Really, the only revelation here is a very quick rendition of a famous ragtime tune (I recognized the melody, but don't know the name) at the end of Travel Weary Capricorn.

The sound quality is just fair. And I'm not one of those who thinks the best of this lineup are the live recordings. I prefer the control of the studio renditions. perhaps you had to be there.

The interview is amusing, but not necessary, as is the instrumental 21st Century Schizoid Man

Mick Jaggers introduction of King Crimson on this gig was prophetic, you have to say......

This was the free gig Rolling Stones did in Hyde Park. It was first meant as just a free gig. But the death of Brian Jones some days beforehand gave the whole gig a new meaning. Mick Jagger unleashed some white doves - or was it butterflies ? - before the gig and the gig became a very important part of the rock'n'roll folklore, to be talked about until the end of this planet.

King Crimson was one of the warm up bands. Maybe they were the first warm up band too. In fact, I believe they were that. Bottom of the bill too. Mick Jagger was right though. We were going to here a lot from/about this band in the future. Thanx for the warning.

The sound here is a bit bootleg quality, is the first thing that really hits me. It is pretty foul, in fact. The brilliance of the first two tracks is difficult to drown out though. 21st Century Schizoid Man and In The Court Of The Crimson King. Talk about starting on a high..... Epitaph also comes along on this album. The other tracks is good too. The interview and the instrumental version of 21st Century Schizoid Man is bonuses and good historical material too.

This is first and foremost a documentation of their breakthrough gig from one of the most legendary happenings in the history of popular music. Much due to the passing of Brian Jones, it has to be said. The sound is pretty foul, but the historic significance and the brilliance of the three above mentioned tracks lifts this album up to a weak 3 stars, in my humble opinion. If you are a King Crimson fan, you will treasure this album though.

3 stars

KING CRIMSON was acting in that Hyde Park concert (5-July-69) as one of the opening bands for the ROLLING STONES, which were playing their first concert with their new guitarist Mick Taylor, who replaced the recently late Brian Jones (who left the band, or was fired, in June 1969). Jones died in 3-July-69, so unexpectedly, this Hyde Park concert finally was done as a tribute to him. In the late seventies I watched on TV to the ROLLING STONES`s part of the concert because it was broadcasted once on a TV channel in my city, and their performance was not very good, due more to the guitars being somewhat out of tune. Anyway, that concert was played before an audience of a half a million people, and it was a very good opportunity for KING CRIMSON particularly because then they had a reputation of being a very good band despite still not having recorded their first album ("In the Court of the Crimson King"), which was going to be recorded in late July and in August of 1969, and to be released in October 1969.

KING CRIMSON`s concert was a brief part in that day, lasting about 40 minutes. Anyway, the band played with a lot of energy, showing why they deserved that very good reputation. The recording is not very good, but it sounds somewhat "balanced". All the members of the band played very well, with the occasional out of tune vocals or with some mistakes done by them. But I can listen to Michael Giles`s very impressive drums playing, and to Ian McDonald`s talent playing flute, sax and mellotron, plus the sometimes very heavy bass guitar playing from Greg Lake and from Robert Fripp`s guitar playing. As a whole the band sounds very heavy and playing with a lot of energy. This line-up of the band really had very talented musicians, and it really is a shame that they only played together for one year (1969).

The band played three songs which they were going to record for their first album ("21st Century Schizoid Man", "In The Court Of The Crimson King", and a brief version of "Epitaph").. There is a lot of improvisation and interplay between the musicians. This can be listened in all the songs, but more particularly in "Get Thy Bearings " ( a song composed by Donovan), "Mantra", "Travel Weary Capricorn ", and "Mars" (this last one is a brief fragment from Gustav Holst`s "The Planets" suite). The audience sounds like they really enjoyed a lot their songs and playing. Maybe the set list was shortened to give the chance to the other bands to play.

A very interesting historical document which shows the importance of this band in the development of Prog Rock music. A very influential band, and the original line-up was maybe the best they had. One really wishes that their performances in concert could have been recorded better. And also one really wishes that one day the original line-up could do a reunion concert , or even to record a new album together...

In youtube recently I saw a brief video (of approximately one and a half minutes in lenght) of the band playing "21st Century Schizoid Man" in this Hyde Park concert. I don`t know if their part of the concert was also filmed in its entirety. It could be interesting to see their whole concert in video.

The Rolling Stones were playing Hyde Park in July 1969 and wanted to get a good set of support bands together and make a proper mini-festival out of it; word of mouth had reached them that this King Crimson lot who hadn't even put out an album yet were pretty good, and so Robert Fripp, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald, and Michael Giles stepped onto the stage and into the limelight - and that momentous event in the band's history is captured here.

The sound quality is, on an objective basis, only fair - but for a tape of a live band on a makeshift stage in an outdoor festival from 1969, it's pretty good, and provides more or less the earliest glimpse we have of their primal stages. Though much material will be familiar from the debut album (and the Mars section of In the Wake of Poseidon rounds out the show), other material here shows a somewhat more overtly psychedelic side to the band which was already fading away; that said, the concluding blast of Mars and the opening thunder of 21st Century Schizoid Man reveal that a band of rare power was already out here.

This was recently reissued on the Complete 1969 Recordings boxed set with about as much audio tidying-up as can viably be expected; if sound quality is a factor and you have deep pockets, and you are extremely interested in this period of the band, I'd recommend that set. The lone CD, if you can get it at a good price, may be more the speed for folk who don't need multiple live releases from the 1969 lineup of the band, but do want to have a listen to how they sounded before In the Court of the Crimson King came out and are interested in this specific performance due to the Stones connection.