King Crimson have announced plans to mark their 50th anniversary year on the exact anniversary of the band’s first-ever rehearsal.

Robert Fripp’s current lineup’s 2019 schedule will include 50 concerts, the release of the new documentary Cosmic FuKc and a series of archival releases and rarities. The first confirmed set of live dates for the year includes three U.S. shows in September.

“On the evening of Monday January 13th, 1969, King Crimson formally began rehearsals in the basement of the Fulham Palace Road Cafe [in London],” King Crimson said on their website. “After hauling their equipment down the stairs into their cramped rehearsal room Greg Lake, Ian McDonald, Michael Giles and Robert Fripp plugged in their instruments, and with Peter Sinfield operating lights and sound, played and worked on material for the next hour and a half.

“By July of that year, the band was performing in Hyde Park on the same bill as the Rolling Stones to an audience of up to 500,000 people. By October, the debut album In the Court of the Crimson King was in the Top 5 of the U.K. album charts, shortly followed by a top 30 position in the U.S. album charts and a No. 1 slot – replacing Abbey Road – in the Japanese international chart. By December, following a series of U.S. concerts finishing at San Francisco’s Fillmore West, the band’s first lineup had imploded. But that was just the beginning.”

The statement added that Cosmic FuKc would arrive late in the year with an accompanying soundtrack, and that director Toby Amies had been “given unique access to the current band as well as interviews with past members and archive footage.”

For 50 weeks, the band will digitally release a “new, rare or alternate take from across the KC catalog” with a spoken introduction by band manager and producer David Singleton. The first, a radio edit of “21st Century Schizoid Man,” is available now and can be heard below.

Additional planned releases include an expanded version of the debut album, a 1972-74 vinyl box set, the last three of the band’s 50 Collectors’ Club releases, a set of 1969 recordings, the publication of revised band memoir In the Court of the King Crimson, limited-edition prints and merchandise.

King Crimson 2019 Celebration Tour: U.S. Dates
Sep. 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre
Sep. 10 – Chicago, IL @ Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University
Sep. 21 – New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall

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