The Night Watch (album)

The Night Watch
Live album by King Crimson
Released	17 October 1997
Recorded	23 November 1973
Venue	Concertgebouw (Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Genre	Progressive rock, heavy metal, hard rock, free improvisation
Length	84:34
Label	Discipline Global Mobile
King Crimson chronology
Epitaph (1997) The Night Watch (1997) Absent Lovers: Live in Montreal (1998)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

The Night Watch is a live album (2-CD set) by the English rock band King Crimson, recorded in Amsterdam in 1973, and released in 1997.

Contents

This album contains an important performance in King Crimson's career, being the source of the improvisations "Trio" and "Starless and Bible Black", the Fripp instrumental "Fracture" and the intro to the song "The Night Watch", all of which were included, with some editing, in the 1974 album Starless and Bible Black. Prerecorded excerpts of (No Pussyfooting) appear at the end of "21st Century Schizoid Man" similarly to what was included at the beginning of USA.

Production

The concert was performed on 23 November 1973 at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Most of the concert was also broadcast live by the BBC and taped by listeners; bootlegs of the broadcast circulated among fans. The concert began with a version of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Part I)", a recording of which has never been found. Some bootlegs claim to have it but these are recordings from other sources.^[2] It was one of the first releases of archival recordings by Discipline Global Mobile, the music company founded by Robert Fripp.

Art

Like the covers of many King Crimson albums, The Night Watch's cover features a painting by P. J. Crook, which is also entitled The Nightwatch. The sleeve was designed by the Bill Smith Studio of London.

Track listing

Disc 1

1. "Easy Money" (Robert Fripp, John Wetton, Richard Palmer-James) – 6:14
2. "Lament" (Fripp, Wetton, Palmer-James) – 4:14
3. "Book of Saturday" (Fripp, Wetton, Palmer-James) – 4:07
4. "Fracture" (Fripp) – 11:28
5. "The Night Watch" (Fripp, Wetton, Palmer-James) – 5:28
6. "Improvisation: Starless and Bible Black" (David Cross, Fripp, Wetton, Bill Bruford) – 9:11

Disc 2

1. "Improvisation: Trio" (Cross, Fripp, Wetton, Bruford) – 6:09
2. "Exiles" (Cross, Fripp, Wetton, Palmer-James) – 6:37
3. "Improvisation: The Fright Watch" (Cross, Fripp, Wetton, Bruford) – 6:03
4. "The Talking Drum" (Cross, Fripp, Wetton, Bruford, Jamie Muir) – 6:34
5. "Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Part II)" (Fripp) – 7:51
6. "21st Century Schizoid Man" (Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake, Michael Giles, Peter Sinfield) – 10:38

• Recorded at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 23 November 1973

Credits

• Recording Engineer: George Chkiantz
• Mixing Engineer: David Singleton
• Assistant Engineer: Alex Mundy.
• Mixed at DGM World Central by David Singleton & Robert Fripp during July 1997.

Personnel

• Robert Fripp – guitar, mellotron
• John Wetton – bass guitar, vocals
• David Cross – violin, viola, keyboards
• Bill Bruford – drums, percussion

Charts

Chart (1997)	Peak position
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[3]	61

References

1. The Night Watch at AllMusic
2. Confirmed by David Singleton at The Night Watch playback held on 17 January 1998 in London.
3. Oricon Album Chart Book: Complete Edition 1970–2005 (in Japanese). Roppongi, Tokyo: Oricon Entertainment. 2006. ISBN 4-87131-077-9.