King Crimson have released the official film of their performance at the Alabamahalle in Munich on September 29, 1982. The video, which premiered on the band's YouTube channel, features widely bootlegged footage originally broadcast on the German TV show Rochaus Dem Alabamahalle, a series that featured touring bands of the day.
The Alabamahalle date was the final show of King Crimson's Beat tour, undertaken to mark the release of that year's album of the same name, and featured the band's 80s-era lineup of Robert Fripp on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Adrian Belew on vocals and guitar, and Tony Levin on Chapman stick, bass guitar and vocals.
Despite both the YouTube description and the DGM website proclaiming the footage to include "the full show" from Munich, this appears not to be the case. The video clocks in at just over 40 minutes but excludes four songs played on the night: Thela Hun Ginjeet, Frame By Frame, Elephant Talk and the closing Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part Two. The full set was released on CD as Live in Munich, 1982 by the King Crimson Collectors' Club in 2006, and as a download in 2012.
The concert footage was also included in the deluxe collection King Crimson On (and Off) The Road (Part 2: The Middle), released in 2016.
Adrian Belew and Tony Levin have revisited the Beat era more recently, and have just finished a US tour with a band of the same name, with Steve Vai playing Robert Fripp's parts and Tool drummer Danny Carey covering Bruford's.
"These have been some of the most special concerts I have ever experienced," says Belew. "Pure joy. So it is bittersweet to end for now, but beautiful nonetheless. This is not my last post about all things Beat so I'll leave you with this: My deepest thanks for making Beat a historic success."
