Live in Hyde Park July 5, 1969

Live in Hyde Park July 5, 1969 captures King Crimson's set at the Hyde Park Festival in London, where they opened for the Rolling Stones in front of a crowd estimated at half a million. The recording comes from a low-quality audience bootleg, so it is a document rather than a showcase for sound. The set was trimmed for the occasion, with the closing track, Mars, much shorter than usual. Even so, the performance went down well and boosted the band's reputation. It came out in 2000 through the King Crimson Collector's Club.

It sits in the story of the original line-up, just before their debut, In the Court of the Crimson King, arrived in 1969. Two bonus tracks add context: excerpts from a 1997 press conference with all five original members, and an instrumental 21st Century Schizoid Man from Morgan Studios, which Robert Fripp himself called "dismal in extremis" as a guide track. Liner notes from Fripp, Ian McDonald, Michael Giles, Peter Sinfield and David Enthoven round it out.