The Sinuous 1990s – The many-headed stylistic beast

DECADE BY DECADE – THE LIVE CONCERT EXPERIENCE / OVERVIEW

Episode 3: 1990s

Garbage

The 1990s spawned a wonderfully diverse and interesting selection of musical acts ranging from the heavier music of Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Jane’s Addiction, Dinosaur Jr, Foo Fighters, and Nirvana to the more intellectual (perhaps) music of bands such as R.E.M., Soundgarden, The Lemonheads, The Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, and the wonderful Garbage.

 

 

 

The Foo Fighters

This in almost stark contrast to the music of the early 1980s, which began with a whimper rather than a bang with all of those synthy / poppy bands from the UK – sees a real return to harder rock music, to heavy guitar music, in a much more powerful and possibly closer to the 1970s in lineage way – the 90s rocked hard.

 

 

 

Motörhead

One of the main examples of a band that really, really rocked hard, perhaps the hardest, is the redoubtable Motörhead. led by the late, great Lemmy.  This type of extremely heavy, extremely fast rock became one of the hallmarks of 1990s hard rock – and Motörhead – with Lemmy at the helm – definitely led the way.

 

 

 

Faith No More

Alternative Metal also sprang forth in great numbers during the 1990s, which saw many very popular bands such as Tool, Helmet, the very underrated Faith No More, Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Rage Against the Machine to name but a few – representing a thriving alternative music scene with some powerful new sounds emerging.

Industrial Metal also gained popularity during the 1990s, in the form of Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, Ministry, and the amazing German band, Rammstein.

 

Nine Inch Nails

In the main, this was a fairly new form of music for the 1990s; although 1980s antecedents such as Killing Joke might lend credence to the notion of a fusion of metal and punk as the ingredients of this new genre – with the additional third element of electronica added in – and one of the best examples of that holy trinity of styles would be the oft-overlooked Prodigy.

Bjork

The 90s also brought us trip-hop, another new genre explored by artists such as Portishead, and Björk,slow-moving beat-based electronic music.

 

Meanwhile, Indie Rock proponents such as Sonic Youth and Pixies rose up in the underground scene, with bands such as Pavement,  Yo La Tengo, The Breeders, Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., Guided by Voices, Liz Phair, and The Flaming Lips quickly following in their footsteps.

Oasis

But for many, what kept real rock alive in the 1990s was the resurgence of rock in the United Kingdom otherwise known as Britpop – a massive phenomena in early 90s Britain – featuring a number of popular, chart-topping bands such as  Blur, Suede, Pulp, Manic Street Preachers, Elastica, Supergrass, The Verve and of course, the remarkable Oasis.

 

These in turn provided the impetus for the success of the more provincial “Madchester” bands hailing from Manchester in the U.K., such as Happy Mondays, and The Stone Roses.

 

Radiohead

What happened after Oasis, then? – well, post-Britpop – a new batch of musical acts appeared with the likes of the Verve, Travis, Stereophonics. Feeder, with the extremely popular band Radiohead leading the way towards the latter half of the decade.

 

Britney Spears

I haven’t really got the space to add in all of the other genres of music that had famous 1990s practitioners, for example – over in the pop universe, such remarkable phenomena as Britney Spears, or even farther outside my own mostly progressive rock world – artists such as  Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, TLC, or Robert Fripp‘s favourite singer, the redoubtable Whitney Houston.

 

 

The Spice Girls

I am obliged legally to mention the rise “manufactured pop” which had existed for a long, long time in one form or another, but reached a new zenith with the “creation” or rather, “fabrication” of huge stars such as the incredibly popular Spice Girls.  Manufactured boy bands and girl bands proliferated to the point of total oversaturation and have lead to the kind of “X-Factor” or “Britain’s Got Talent” environment we are forced to live in now.

 

I blame the Spice Girls for that.  And the Monkees, the Jackson 5 and the Osmonds before them.  Shudder.

But enough of this very incomplete list (above) of bands popular in the 1990s, which while not complete, at least gives you an idea of what kind of music was in the air during this most curious of decades – and onto my own concert experience in this new world of industrial metal and slow moving trip hop – and of course for me, eternally stuck in the music of the 60s and 70s – my “1990s Concert Experience” will be mostly comprised of the music I know and love, along with a sprinkling of newer artists to try and expand my limited range of musical interests – in every decade, I tried to attend a few “atypical” shows – shows that I wouldn’t normally think about attending (such as, as noted below, “Earthworks” – or later on, “The Innocence Mission”) – just to experience something new.

 

DAVE STAFFORD CONCERT ATTENDANCES – THE 1990s:

1990

This year was like any other year full of exciting live concerts that I might attend, and I started out with a fairly small number of shows, mainly from artists I already favoured and had seen in previous years – but not, possibly, in their newest 1990s incarnations.

A young Todd Rundgren

These 1990s performances I witnessed included Todd Rundgren, Peter Hammill (as always, meaning a trip up to Los Angeles to see him at the famous Roxy Theatre), and the incredibly capable guitarist Robert Fripp, this time performing acoustically with the remarkable League Of Crafty Guitarists.

Also, there was at least one new excursion into a completely different kind of music than I was accustomed to – I went to see Bill Bruford’s “Earthworks” live at the Royal Festival Hall in London – since I had to be there then anyway – and that was a very, very different  experience musically speaking.

A young Peter Hammill

Being what I guess can only be described as “modern jazz” – I did enjoy it on a musical level, but it also confirmed for me that I am firmly rooted in the clutches of rock, pop, and progressive rock – and I don’t really stray outside of that very often.

But I am glad I saw them, and it was a great venue too – always nice to attend a concert on what was then foreign soil but is now, home.  Bruford and his band of stalwart jazzers put on a very respectable show – and for what it was, I did enjoy it – but – King Crimson live it was not!

1991

Crowded House – circa 1991

1991 was a somewhat different year – which began, again, with the ever-touring Todd Rundgren (whose music, if I am honest, I was enjoying a bit less each time I went to see him) but this time, I took in Crowded House (this incarnation, with Tim Finn, band leader Neil’s older brother – both alumni of the remarkable New Zealand band Split Enz – joining the band, so I got to hear the Finn Brother’s amazing vocal harmonies in person) – this was and is, my favourite incarnation of this band, the “Woodface” tour and album – a fantastic show.

 

 

Tin Machine

Another real highlight of ’91 was that I finally, after many, many years of constantly missing him, finally got to see David Bowie performing live – and what a performance – with his new band Tin Machine – with the astonishingly brilliant and talented Reeves Gabrels on lead guitar – this band rocked my socks off – they were fantastic live – just plain two guitars bass and drums rock and roll.

 

I was kinda glad I didn’t go to a “normal” Bowie concert, which would probably have been a bit like listening to a Greatest Hits compilation – seeing him play with Tin Machine was very real, very vibrant and you could see in his eyes and in the infectious grin he had on stage – that he was having the time of his life with his little rock band!  It was most excellent – and, I gained a new guitar hero in Reeves Gabrels, whose career I have followed ever since – an absolutely fabulous and uniquely intriguing lead guitarist with a very personal and unmistakable style – an awesome guitarist!

 

1992

1992 was an unusual “quiet year” for live shows, starting out with a very small, intimate performance by the very talented California Guitar Trio at a small bookshop – the Better World Galleria – in San Diego, California.  This was at a time when I was still very involved in Guitar Craft so I am actually acquainted with the guys in the band and I think that they invited me personally to attend – so I did – and as they always do, the Trio put on an excellent performance.

The rest of the year was dominated by two very important and significant events, the first of which was seeing my third and final Beatle – Ringo Starr.  In 1974, I had managed to see George Harrison at the LA Forum with Ravi Shankar, and Paul McCartney in ’76 during his Wings Over America tour, but to date I had never managed to see John Lennon (I never did) or Ringo Starr – from my favourite band of all time –

Ringo Starr – White Album Sessions 1968

The Beatles.  So when I had the chance to see Ringo with his All-Starr Band – who, in 1992, included the aforementioned Todd Rundgren on lead guitar – how could I say no?

Seeing Ringo live was a far, far more musical and brilliant experience than you might have thought, and with all of the other musical guests in the band it became more of a star-studded walk down several different memory lanes – the Beatles one being of course one of the most important ones. Ringo‘s son Zak Starkey was incredibly capable as the band’s main drummer – with Ringo joining in when he wasn’t busy singing or being the MC of the show.

Rundgren performed a version of his song “Black Maria” which Ringo had apparently requested as his favourite Rundgren track – while the band supported Ringo through the expected Beatle hits – including a very moving “With A Little Help From My Friends” where the crowd totally got behind Ringo when he hits the high note at the end – the crowd just went wild – and it was really, really a much better experience than I thought it might have been – thoroughly enjoyable.

So in 1992 – I got to experience the third and final Beatle I would manage to see perform live, despite that band breaking up way, way back in 1970 when I was still very young (but already a huge fan of the Beatles – even then).

The second and final concert event for 1992 was another one on “foreign” soil, I once again found myself in London, this time at the Town and Country, for the 20th Anniversary Camel Tour.

This was the first time I got to see Camel  after several missed opportunities in the previous decades – so I was overjoyed as they have always been one of my top favourite bands – and I was not in any way disappointed.  Andy Latimer is surely one of the most talented of all progressive rock guitarists, and seeing him play those remarkable tunes at long last was absolutely fantastic.

Camel – circa 1972

A great show, and a great start to my experiences seeing Camel live – I was fortunately enough to live in California at the same time as Andy Latimer, so I saw the band a number of times then from Dust & Dreams on through Harbour of Tears – and then again more recently – really recently – I went to see the band performing “Moonmadness” in its entirety at the Tyne Theatre in Newcastle just last month (September 9, 2018)  – and they were as absolutely brilliant as ever.  The very best of prog.

 

1993

1993 was a very, very unique year for me in that I saw certain groups that had such a lasting and enormous impact on me both as a listener and as a musician – it’s a year like no other, when at least two of the bands I saw that year – only really EXISTED during that year – and it meant that this was a very special year indeed for live music.

The first of two concerts I attended featuring the Robert Fripp String Quintet – at the fantastic Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, California – this band was absolutely unique and only existed I believe, as a live performance project  – their one album is a live album.

A rare photo of the Robert Fripp String Quintet performing live in 1995

This band was really a combination of Robert Fripp on lead guitar and soundscapes, Trey Gunn (of King Crimson) on Stick, and the California Guitar Trio on acoustic guitars – an unusual musical marriage of the acoustic and electric sides of Robert Fripp.

 

The music that this group played was so unique and so exquisitely beautiful that I’ve never forgotten the beauty and heartbreak of hearing pieces like the incredible “Hope” performed live – and then, the climax of each concert was one of the most dissonant, out-there Fripp Soundscape performances ever created – the “Threnody For Souls In Torment” – I think the title says it all.

So from great beauty to great dissonance – this band could do it all, and in the space of one performance you would experience an almost bewildering array of ever changing musical beauty and emotion – as well as technical prowess so powerful as to leave you breathless – a band that you just had to see if you could – and one of Robert’s best spin-off projects – perhaps the best.

My next concert for 1993 was something very, very different indeed – again, at the remarkable Belly Up Tavern – this time, it was Soukous music from the Congo (Zaire) in the person of Kanda Bongo Man – whose band is the only modern band that plays Congolese-inspired music like the music I heard growing up in East Africa.

Kanda Bongo Man – Live

I had recently been listening to quite a lot of music by this group, so when I saw they were playing live, I hastened to get tickets – and it turned out to be an absolutely awesome evening of live African music from a very, very capable band with a truly great lead singer and performer – the Kanda Bongo Man himself.

This one definitely falls under the category of “shows I would never normally attend” but as I grew up in East Africa, I have a huge soft spot for this kind of twin lead guitar based music – and the guitar playing I witnessed that evening was absolutely fascinating and very faithfully recreated the music I remembered – interlocking lead guitars not a million miles away from the sound of Fripp and Belew’s interlocking lead guitars on the 1981 King Crimson masterpiece “Discipline”!!

I’m very glad indeed, that I attended this most unusual show – and I think it’s definitely a good idea to occasionally go outside your comfort zone and go see a concert that you would never ever think to go see – and for me, in 1993, this was the one.

Next on my agenda was a trip up the coast to San Juan Capistrano to the renowned Coach House, to see a second, even better performance by the Robert Fripp String Quintet – and the fact that I got to see this truly magical group play not once, but twice is something for which I am eternally grateful.

As if Fripp’s amazing Quintet was not enough – a unique and unusual live performance – the next thing that happened in 1993 was yet another one of a kind, limited edition short-lived musical projects – and I

Robert Fripp & David Sylvian circa 1993

am talking now about the absolutely stunning “Sylvian–Fripp” – the somewhat unlikely musical meeting of the minds of the former leader of art-rockers Japan with the Guitarist of the Crimson King.

 

I drove up to Los Angeles to see this one, and I remember something unusual – I went with my then bandmate Bryan Helm of The Dozey Lumps and Bindlestiff – and I don’t recall that we ever went to many concerts together, but it was unusual to have another musician to discuss the music with afterwards – and we both thoroughly enjoyed this most amazing performance – the official “Sylvian-Fripp” album, which had been released some months previous to this concert – did pale justice to the monstrous force of the live performance unit – the studio album lacks quite a bit of the punch of the live outfit – and it wasn’t until the live album “Damage” came out, that you could hear on record just how powerful this band was.

The songs are some of Sylvian‘s best, and in the live setting, they also did surprising numbers from the Gone To Earth album (that Fripp had played lead guitar on previously) or even Fripp‘s own tune “Exposure” – the oft-recorded Exposure that has been sung by various singers over time – and Sylvian the latest in a long line of Exposure vocalists.  But the main events were some of the extended tracks where Fripp went full-frontal Hendrix Assault Guitar on us – and I will never forget the screaming, shredding blasts of amazing moving chords that Fripp unleashed on an unsuspecting audience at the Wiltern Theatre that night on tracks such as “Darshan” – that was absolutely a mind-blowing performance.

Seeing both the Robert Fripp String Quintet, and then, just a few months later, seeing the Sylvian-Fripp live concert, all in the same year, was very nearly unbelievable and the sheer virtuosity and musicianship of both of these projects involving Robert Fripp was absolutely undeniable – it changed me as a guitarist forever.

 

1994

Every decade has it’s truly quiet year, and this year – for the 1990s – for whatever reason – was my quietest.  According to my research so far – I only attended one concert this year – but it was a most unusual one – I had been listening to a CD called “Pieces of Africa” by

Kronos Quartet

Kronos Quartet so I decided to go and see them play live – a third entrant, perhaps, to the “atypical” concerts that I like to add into my schedule from time to time – one of those concerts I would not normally think about attending.

 

But I remember a very intriguing and very different musical experience – this group are known for their almost chameleon-like ability to move between musical styles from strictly classical to works such as the aforementioned “Pieces Of Africa” to interesting string quartet interpretations of rock music.

One standout moment for me – a real surprise – when the band suddenly kicked into an all-strings version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” – and it sounded incredible! – it doesn’t get more rock and roll than that – of course, in a strictly classical music setting!  Fascinating show.

 

1995

Well – the Decade Of The Fripp continues in full swing…

Soundscapes – Rack Configuration

…and 1995 started out with two shows in a row from Mr. Fripp – this time, performing his live guitar magic – the magic known now as “Soundscapes” (formerly: “Frippertronics“) – I attended two identically-configured shows, one on January 27th and again on January 28th, which featured the remarkably talented and capable California Guitar Trio as the opening act, and then Fripp‘s Soundscape performance followed.

What is a Soundscape?, you may ask – well, Fripp states on the Discipline Global Mobile web site that Soundscapes “has the aim of finding ways in which intelligence and music, definition and discovery, courtesy and reciprocation may enter into the act of music for both musician and audience”.

Soundscapes really have to be experienced live to fully appreciate their amazing sonic qualities – the recordings, which are generally speaking all live anyway – don’t quite do them justice without the visual aspect of seeing Robert sending notes to different loopers

Frippertronics – The Original System Using Two Revox A77 Reel-To-Reel Tape Recorders

to do different things, playing melodies with different effects or guitar synth voices to provide musical textural variety, and also, the sound of a brilliantly-conceived stereo electric guitar system live in the room – it’s an amazing immersive experience, and whether you like Soundscapes or not – they are really something to experience live.

 

I was lucky enough to see this remarkable show at least twice, because I’d also seen a rehearsal that year that Robert did, when I was on a Guitar Craft course, where he used the assembled Crafties (those of us on the course that year) as guinea pigs – did we mind if he tested his system?  No – we did not mind.  So I’d seen a similar show to these, done in the big room at Ojai, California – during a Guitar Craft course – so my own experience of Soundscapes is a bit more varied than most – and I feel very fortunate indeed to have had the additional amazing experience of seeing and hearing Robert do an entire Soundscape performance in a room in an Ojai facility.

Of course, I was also able, on that course, to get a decent look at Robert’s pedal board, so when I finished the Course, I went straight to Guitar Centre and bought the same pitch shifter that RF was using – and I used that for years – it was fantastic, because of course with a little work, I could pretty much get exactly the same live two octaves up sound that he did – it sounded great.  (Note:  the pedal in question was the Digitech Whammy II – a great pitch pedal at the time).

 

Soundscapes

 

After starting the year out on the high of getting to see the Trio twice followed by Robert Fripp twice, a few months passed and then, not to my surprise, I found myself sitting at Copley Symphony Hall on June 28, 1995 – waiting for the new “double trio” version of King Crimson to take the stage – so my third Robert Fripp concert of the year and my third concert containing Robert Fripp that year – 1995 was definitely the Year Of The Fripp for me!

 

King Crimson – Double Trio Configuration – circa 1995

King Crimson were very, very accomplished and very, very powerful, and this was the first time I had seen this “new” incarnation – which meant it was the first concert experience of tracks such as “Dinosaur” which I thought was absolutely astonishing – and also, the beautiful side of the double trio, as represented by the very gorgeous “Walking On Air” – sung beautifully by Belew, with both Fripp and Belew playing clean, reverse guitars – a plethora of stunningly gorgeous reverse guitar sound – fantastic!

 

The final part of my wonderful 1995 concert experience was dedicated to a new interest I had developed in the 1990s – in a band from the East Coast of the United States called “The Innocence Mission” – I’d heard (or seen, rather?) an MTV video late one night by this band, and on a whim, I bought their first album – which I very much enjoyed.   I began to follow them, and continued to buy their albums and then, logically, when I heard they were to be playing live – I went to see them.

The Innocence Mission

The band consists of a husband and wife team, who play guitars and keyboards / guitars respectively, although wife Karen Peris sings most of the lead vocals, they both sing – and the band has had various supporting members over the years – to the point where I believe they are now down to just a duo at the present time.  When I saw them in 1995 – they still had a full band of drums, bass, lead guitar, and piano or acoustic guitar played by Karen Peris.

 

 

So my final concert experience of 1995 was seeing this remarkable new group playing live – and it was a revelation – the songs, some seemingly so fragile that you thought they might break while being sung – others more upbeat, but all with a lovely positive light about them.  I absolutely loved their second and third albums (Umbrella and Glow, respectively) and I continued on following them for many, many years after those albums, too.

 

The Innocence Mission – Full Band

I am so glad I took the chance to just buy the first Innocence Mission CD sound-unheard – and I really liked it – and that really brought me years and years of enjoyment, allowing me to see this band more than once live in a concert setting, and enjoying their records throughout the 90s and beyond.  A really nice way to end the year, with a tight, organised show featuring some of the most beautiful, delicate and fantastic songs – really gorgeous music – and Don Peris is a very accomplished guitarist too whose playing I also very much enjoy.

Another happy accident – and I can now proudly add this band to the list of bands that I admire and enjoy listening to…the Innocence Mission.

 

1996

Although no ticket stubs survive from this year, I am aware of at least a couple of shows I attended – the first – being a second concert by The Innocence Mission – I believe this would be for their third album “Glow” which meant new songs, and new chances to

Karen Peris

see the remarkable Karen Peris sit at the piano and sing the most beautiful songs in the universe – and it was another incredible night – which ended with the chance for a brief conversation with the Peris couple – they were both really accommodating and very kind – so I had a fantastic experience at this second really quality performance by this then-up-and-coming indie band.  Really enjoyable.

 

I should note here that both times I saw The Innocence Mission, they were accompanied by another band, called 16 Horsepower, that opened for The Innocence Mission on both occasions.  They were not really to my taste, but it was interesting music – the lead singer was a kind of tortured soul (??) and his vocal approach and lyrics were provocative and interesting – so it lent some interesting contrast to the more straightforward beauty of the songs of Karen and Don Peris.

 

The final big musical event of 1996 for me, was a second visit from King Crimson, again, in Double Trio mode – this time, at a strange outdoor gig in San Diego at a new venue called “Hospitality Point” (i kid you not) and I was roped in – thanks to my involvement with Guitar Craft – into the job of handing out flyers to the punters as they entered the performance area.

This particular King Crimson performance was very significant to me, first of all – the band had improved and moved on since the first time I’d seen them at Copley Symphony Hall in San Diego, the year before – and they had expanded their repertoire somewhat too – and that was why I particularly did not want to miss this particular show – because I had heard that they were now performing the classic King Crimson song “21st Century Schizoid Man” – so after being a fan of the band for many, many years, and seeing them play four or five times by this point – I finally got to hear them play Schizoid Man – and it was immaculate – when they got to the famous “precision” section near the end of the song – the whole band dropped down, and they played those famous precision riffs – perfectly in time, six bodies united in sound – and it really was impressive – they got the HARDEST part of one of the band’s most difficult songs – exactly right – the way it should be.

I was impressed to say the least.  Also had been rewarded with a back stage pass, but really didn’t do much except watch Tony Levin walk past – everyone was in hiding after what was probably an exhausting show.  Another great King Crimson experience – the Double Trio was loud, they were incredibly talented musicians – and for me – it really worked – I loved that version of the band – and I’m very happy not only that I got to see them play twice, but also that I finally, finally got to see the band – any version of the band – play “21st Century Schizoid Man” – live.  An experience, in my opinion, well worth waiting for – after all, I’d been waiting since 1981, really – when the band first re-emerged – so just the 15 years had passed – until one version of the band finally learned the song!

 

1997

This was an interesting year – and it started out with a very unusual an interesting show in a somewhat unusual venue – a guitar shop in Santa Monica, California called “McCabe’s Music”.  “McCabe’s” was well-known for their very small, intimate acoustic performances – they had a small concert space upstairs – that seated perhaps 70 or 80 people (?) and I can remember being very excited about going to a concert at this famous guitar shop – I remember I went early, so I could look at the guitars and so on – and browsed around in there for perhaps an hour – before they threw us all out so we could all come back in again for the show – or, maybe they let us stay in – I can’t recall.

The artist we were all waiting to see is the very famous British musician – guitarist and songwriter Roy Harper, doing a rare appearance in California playing live upstairs at McCabe’s – news of the show was just out of the blue – but I wasn’t about to miss this – my first chance to see Roy Harper live.

Roy Harper in more recent times

I was not disappointed – two very good sets of amazing music later, I was stunned by the man’s ability to perform these utterly unique and very specifically his songs – he writes songs like no other – many of them hard-hitting, others, the most tender love songs you might imagine – any cross-section of any dozen songs from any Roy Harper album will give you a set of songs that covers a massive range of emotion and colour and humanism and beauty.

 

He is a poet, writer, activist – outraged and angry peacenik – and I loved this crazy, nutty Englishman and his eccentric music – and his voice – his voice is an instrument in itself, and clever use of delay and reverb live lends itself to some stunning vocal performances along with his lone acoustic guitar – he often managed to sound like a lot more than one man with a guitar.

Those two shows are among my most prized memories – and when Roy came back after the intermission – he was noticeably relaxed, I think that the McCabe’s staff had possibly supplied him with some high quality California cannabis-derived product of some kind – so the second set started out with Roy just laughing for about five minutes – and the audience laughing with him and at him – it was hilarious – and then, he turned in a performance that was even better than the stunningly good first set!

A remarkable experience indeed, and while I was able to see Roy on other occasions later on – this first time was definitely the best time – an intimate venue, and a great performance from someone who is a National treasure – there is only one Roy Harper – friend of Jimmy Page – 1960s minstrel – stoned hippie free love advocate – poet and singer extraordinaire.

Next on the agenda then, for 1997, was the first of a number of shows by Camel – the first time I’d seen them in five years – Andy Latimer was now living somewhere in Northern California, and had his new version of Camel playing up and down the California coast for quite a few years.

I think that this year would probably have been the concert for Dust & Dreams, which is a fantastic album in it’s own right, and I absolutely love the music of Camel but in particular, I love the flute and guitar playing of leader/lead singer/lead guitarist Andy Latimer, and it did my heart good to see Andy doing so well, with a FANTASTIC new band – the first time I saw new bassist Colin Bass in the band – and playing fantastic new

Andy Latimer – Camel’s Guitar Genius

material too – I’ve seen Camel four or five times now, across the years – and the performances have all been uniformly immaculate and of the highest musical quality – Andy knows how to arrange a proggy tune!  So this latest new incarnation of Camel – was OK by me – and I went to see them more than once.

 

To this day, I would say that Camel in a way, represent what “Progressive Rock” is and what it should be – more than almost any other band.  And the performance I witnessed just last month – where the band played the entire “Moonmadness” album without stopping – then, took a break, and then came out and played a LONG set of classic Camel music – and they were stupendous.

Only Colin Bass remained now in 2018, from the 1997 lineup – so they had a new drummer (Denis Clement) and keyboard player (Pete Jones) for the Moonmadness 2018 tour – and the new keyboard player Pete Jones has an amazing voice – so this new Camel, the 2018 Camel – has the best live vocal approach I have ever heard the band have!

They even attempted – and easily pulled off – a live three part harmony – and the two part harmony singing between Latimer and the very,  very accomplished new keyboard player Pete Jones was absolutely spot on throughout – raising their game as a live performance act even further.  And Latimer has battled on despite ill health – the man is an absolute legend!

Fish – Marillion’s Original (And Best) Singer

1997 continues with another legendary concert – the final tour of Marillion where their lead singer was still named Fish.  The tour for then-new album “Clutching At Straws” – remarkably, Marillion had done the impossible by making a followup album, to their hugely successful mid 1980s album “Misplaced Childhood” that was just as good if not better – I actually prefer it – and so had upped their game musically – and I was excited to hear the band playing this new album – I’d seen them playing “Misplaced Childhood” previously when I’d seen them live in San Diego; this time, I traveled up to the old reliable Coach House, to see Fish‘s last stand with Marillion – of course, we didn’t know it was his last tour with the band – but the writing was on the wall.

 

The show at the Coach House that night was absolutely amazing and I had a fantastic time – the band were so precise, and this was a great new bunch of songs – and I think their performance this year, on this tour – was miles beyond what I’d seen previously when I saw them live – and to my mind – still never exceeded by the “new Marillion” – the one with the singer NOT named Fish.  That Marillion – has never quite come up with another album that thrills me as much as the brutally honest and self-examining “Clutching At Straws” does.

At one point during the performance Fish was supposed to do a costume change – but he told the audience instead – “I’m supposed to do a costume change now but I will be damned if I am going to go up and down those BLOODY stairs one more time” – to which the audience ROARED in pleased approval and Fish just got on with the next song – wearing the wrong costume – the music was all that mattered – and that was his way of reminding us of that fact.

It was a great show and I think an example of Marillion at their very best!

Finally to round out a very exciting and concert-filled year, another show by Todd Rundgren – this time, played at the smaller, more intimate Belly Up Tavern, and if memory serves me correctly, this was the year that he finally played “No. 1 Lowest Common Denominator” live – which was a song that I dearly loved from the 1974 “Todd” double LP – that despite seeing Todd several times since first seeing him with Utopia in 1977 – it wasn’t until 20 years later – here in 1997 – that I actually got to see and hear him play this remarkable song.

Todd Rundgren in recent years

It was a concert for me, of mixed emotions – with highs like that, but also with lows in that some of the newer songs that Todd was performing, just didn’t sit too well with me – I was losing interest in a lot of his newer music – while still very much liking and appreciating his back catalogue.

 

 

Each year, it seemed, Todd’s shows more and more favoured the newer, less interesting and creative songs, and every year, the number of older, interesting, and very creative songs from his best albums, dwindled and dwindled until they became almost non-existent. There also seemed to be less and less emphasis on his substantial abilities as a lead guitarist, and more emphasis on acoustic, piano or other non-virtuoso performance material – in other words – he stopped playing guitar – or at least –  cut it way back.

Later on in his career, he did somewhat remedy this by playing a lot of the older material again – and playing more guitar again – but he had long before that kinda “lost” me.  This may well have been the very last time (to coin a phrase lol) I went to see Todd play – I am not sure.

 

1998

At this point, the haze of time and memory, has drawn a curtain over the decade – and only a couple of glimpses of that clouded memory remain – I have only one entry for 1998, and that was for a new band – a band I had recently discovered by a most unusual method for me – I had heard their new single on the radio, and felt like I had to have that record.  I never hear records on the radio.  But in this case – that’s actually how it happened.

K’s Choice – Sarah & Gert Bettens

That record, turned out to be “Everything For Free” – a wonderful (and also somewhat bittersweet) tale of how everything is free and paid for when you live in a lunatic asylum – from the point of view of someone – an inmate – called “Billy” – as sung by Sarah Bettens – who is showing a visitor around their gilded psychologically-demanded prison and explaining how he gets “everything for free” – it’s a chilling and beautiful tune with a biting, socially aware lyric – by the remarkable Dutch – or perhaps Dutch/American band “K’s Choice“.

 

I bought their brand new 1998 album – “Cocoon Crash”  on the strength of hearing that one song one time driving home – and fell in love.  This was to me, a fantastic find – a new band, a new sound, and a remarkable lead female singer in Sarah Bettens – with a unique and unforgettable voice – or rather, a unique brother (on guitar – Gert Bettens) and sister (guitar and vocals – Sarah Bettens) team that harmonised beautifully together.

I’ve never had another chance to see them perform, but I have continued to buy their albums and follow their career – this band, and in particular the string of albums they made from 1998 probably into the first part of the next decade – really resonate with me.  “Cocoon Crash” is probably my personal favourite, but they have made a number of albums of equal quality – this is a talented and capable band.

The performance took place in tiny, tiny beach front club in a suburb of San Diego called “Mission Beach” – a place I lived when I was a teenager.  The club was very, very small but the band rocked hard and loud, and sounded absolutely amazing – I was blown away by all of the instrumentalists, they were all Dutch except for their bass player who was American – and they played their socks off that night in that tiny place.  Sarah Betten’s voice – and attitude – was unique, infectious and fantastic – and when she came in on third electric guitar the additional noise and din was absolutely amazing – what a great live performance – and, from a band that was brand new for me.

 

1999

The records here completely disappear for a period of time – and it remains unknown if I attended any concerts in the last year of the century or not – I simply do not know – I have so far, not found any ticket stubs or other evidence to show that I did; but should such information become available, I would of course do an update on this blog – so – with K’s Choice and their amazing performance at Cane’s in Mission Beach, California – this decade of concert attendances comes to a somewhat premature end – 1999’s activities remain a complete mystery.

 

 

THE ATYPICALS – A QUICK LOOK

While this concludes the Performances Attended section of the blog, I want to take just a moment to list here, the “new” bands or at least – new to me – i.e. bands that were outside of my experience when I first encountered them in the 1990s – as a contrast to the many bands that I had already been following during the previous two decades.

So while it’s obvious that I have a propensity for bands and artists such as King Crimson, Robert Fripp, Todd Rundgren, Camel, Peter Hammill, and any other classic Prog Rock outfits – the 1990s were, for me, also – a time of new musical awakenings – and while I have provided details of all of these artists in the section above, I thought it was worthwhile compiling a quick list of the “atypical” Dave Stafford concert attendances – those concerts that I would not normally have gone to, or, artists and bands that were either new to me or new in general – which I was encountering and having my first or nearly-first experiences with – through the auspices of seeing them perform live in the 1990s:

The Atypical Bands And Artists List for the 1990s – Dave Stafford’s Concert Attendances:

• Bill Bruford’s “Earthworks” (representing jazz)
• Kronos Quartet (representing classical + rock + ??)
• Kanda Bongo Man (representing African music and Soukous in particular)
• Innocence Mission (representing new music for the 1990s)
• K’s Choice (representing new music for the 1990s)

 

Awesome Guitarists – one motivator for attending so many concerts

I was a guitarist then, and I am still a guitarist now;  so it’s only natural that I would follow and enjoy music by the world’s most talented and capable guitarists – and the list of guitarists that I was lucky enough to see in the 1990s is a pretty staggering list of remarkable, talented musicians.

THE 1990s GUITARIST’S HALL OF FAME:

For each decade, I have created a list of the remarkably diverse and talented batch of lead guitarists I have witnessed within the bands or artists I had seen during that decade (see my blogs for the 1970s and the 1980s respectively – and near the bottom of each, you should find a list of guitarists similar to this one following).

• Todd Rundgren (Solo)
• Peter Hammill (Solo)
• Robert Fripp (Robert Fripp String Quintet, Robert Fripp Soundscapes, Robert Fripp & The League Of Crafty Guitarists, King Crimson, Sylvian-Fripp)
• Neil Finn (Crowded House)
• Reeves Gabrels (Tin Machine)
• Bert Lams (California Guitar Trio)
• Paul Richards (California Guitar Trio)
• Hideyo Moriya (California Guitar Trio)
• Andy Latimer (Camel)
• Rigo Star (Kanda Bongo Man)
• Michael Brook (Sylvian-Fripp)
• Adrian Belew (King Crimson)
• Don Peris (The Innocence Mission)
• Steve Rothery (Marillion)
• Gert Bettens (K’s Choice)
• Sarah Bettens (K’s Choice)

 

 

Forward still…on into the distant future!

So in conclusion – for me, the 90s were packed with many, many performances from many of my very favourite musicians – you will see the names of two in particular, cropping up again and again and again in the account above – Todd Rundgren and Robert Fripp – and in the case of Robert Fripp, during this most interesting decade, I managed to see him perform in, actually, five different groups – which is an astonishing feat in itself if you think about it.  I feel very, very fortunate to have been following his career very closely at the time, and that gave me the opportunity to see him play guitar in so many different performance modes – it was simply amazing!

As well as seeing Robert Fripp play many, many times in five different bands, I managed to see a Beatle – my third and final live Beatle experience with the great Ringo Starr – and also managed to see Todd play guitar a few times, and Camel – who I dearly love – twice – once in 1992 and again in 1997 – a very interesting contrasting experience.  On top of so many Prog-based highlights, including seeing the amazing Peter Hammill performing live at the Roxy in Los Angeles at the start of 1990 – I also became familiar with a handful of new or newer groups – and three of those groups became huge favourites of mine over the years.

It was, for me, a really nice mix of shows – heavy on the things I love, and an enormous number of performances by one Robert Fripp – possibly my favourite guitarist of all time – as well as two master classes in Prog Guitar from Mr. Andy Latimer – not to mention the guitar work of Peter Hammill, Todd Rundgren and young Steve Rothery – none of those guys are exactly slouches when it comes to playing electric guitar – and then a light sprinkling of some very diverse new music – covering jazz, classical, African and new kinds folk rock or rock with just a handful of bands – the perfect mix of live concerts of both the “old familiar” and the “new exciting” shows – making for another nearly perfect decade of truly enjoyable concert attendances.

Until next time then – once again my friends ~

 

Dave Stafford
October 5, 2018

 

Next time on Decade By Decade – The Live Concert Experience / Overview:

The 2000s – The Naughtiest Decade

 

1990s Concert Ticket Stub Collection (courtesy Dave Stafford)

Concert Ticket Stubs – 1990s

 

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King Crimson Live – September 3rd, 2016, Friar’s / Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury, UK

King Crimson, “Friends & Family” Event,  Friar’s, Waterside Theatre

Aylesbury, UK – September 3rd, 2016

The first unofficial show by the “new” King Crimson ended just a few short hours ago, and with the sound of the final selection of the night, “21st Century Schizoid Man” (complete with the original introduction mind you!) still ringing in my ears, I want to very quickly give my impressions of the show.

First of all, it was a “secret” show, a warm-up gig to the warm-up gigs tomorrow and Monday night (both at the same venue, on the 4th and 5th of September respectively). Attendance was by invitation only.

Second, I would very briefly mention that it really *was* friends and families, while we were waiting for the show to begin; in the foyer, and then later, in our seats – I kept seeing familiar faces and I kept getting greeted by many Crafty friends who had travelled from far and wide to see this special concert. I spoke to a couple of Crafties that had flown from the United States, and I was told that one Crafty had even travelled from Australia to see the show- now that made our own 7 hour journey from Scotland, by train and taxi, seem pretty tame – but it was a lovely, low-key way to travel, I can tell you for free. So I must have known 20 or 30 people in the audience, and spoke with a handful of them, or shook hands as I went by…it was very unusual and very nice to see and speak with a lot of people you know – mostly fellow Crafty guitarists.

But I digress…I return now, to the performance itself.

When I said the “new” King Crimson, I did mean King Crimson, 2016 version as compared to King Crimson, 2015 – the difference being, a swap of drummers – Bill Rieflin departing the band in March, 2016 and then being promptly replaced by new member Jeremy Stacey. So this “warm-up” gig would have been his first ever live performance with the band.  

I’ll take just a moment to say what a welcome and capable replacement Jeremy is: he sits in the same position (centre) of the three “front line” drummers, and like Rieflin before him, plays lots of piano, Mellotron and synthesizer parts as well as being an ace drummer. It’s a very, very seamless integration, and in fact, I would say that due to some excellent changes to the band’s repertoire, that Stacey actually played quite a bit more Mellotron especially, than Bill R. ever did. And he played it with complete confidence, as if he’d been doing it all along. He is a fully integrated member of the drum front line, and then by extension, since the drum front line works so well – of the band, too, the more string and horn oriented “back line”.

In short, Jeremy is an excellent, almost fit for fit / fit for purpose replacement for the departed Rieflin – and excellent choice, and his playing, both on the drums as well as on the keyboards, was basically flawless. A brilliant night for the front line, then.
In the back line – there were some opening night issues. Robert’s guitar was sometimes too low in the mix, as was Jakko’s, and there was a fairly disastrous tuning issue in the slow “relentless” section of “Starless” – which after about two minutes, was finally corrected by Jakko, which then put the song back on track.  Mel’s soprano sax on this song was sublime,  Beautiful playing.

Robert’s solo in “Easy Money” for me, was at first, so overly-reverbed, that I couldn’t distinguish the notes he was obviously playing, those notes, literally lost in space by a slightly too ambient patch on his effects unit. Then, as the solo progressed, he switched to the treble pickup, and finally I could start to hear the solo. It was almost inaudible for almost a minute – I could see him playing, but I couldn’t hear him playing. A few minor adjustments on the fly, and the solo finally took wing and flew – consummate professionalism every time.

Beyond those issues, there wasn’t much I could really find fault with, as we found with the 2015 band, the performances were well-rehearsed, well-polished, and the songs were filled with virtuoso moments from every player on the stage, from Tony Levin’s incredibly delicate fretless electric string bass solo on “Vrooom” to Robert Fripp’s impossible ascending / descending moving scales on “Fracture” (yes, I said “Fracture”!!!) this is a band of seasoned professionals, and the band’s collective ability to create virtually perfect renderings of material old or new is simply astonishing.

For me, having the incredibly capable Mel Collins back in the band, who then gets to re-create a series of basically impossible horn and flute solos, that he ad-libbed (probably) in the studio on albums made in 1970 (Lizard) and 1971 (Islands) and Red (1974)…

He also got to play horn parts originally performed by original King Crimson horn man Ian McDonald, and he got to replace Adrian Belew vocal parts with amazing flute solos or baritone saxes or soprano sax – and he is constantly switching between the flute and one of those saxes, and it’s fantastic, too, to hear him playing along with Fripp on pieces like “Starless”. The two sounded good together in 1970, 71 and 72, but they sound absolutely amazing together in King Crimson 2016.

I can’t of course, not say something about the redoubtable trio of drummers, Pat Mastelotto, new man Jeremy Stacey, and now-veteran (almost) Gavin Harrison – who is the “leader” of the drum team. Their unique approach to re-arranging some of the Crimson repertoire, for example, the song “Red” gets a whole new treatment from the trio, with a strange but wonderful slipping / synchronised tribal beat, that takes the song to a completely new place – it’s brilliant.

They also take quite a few solos, and have a couple of their own pieces which I can never keep straight, which one is which, so Crimson-drum-aficionados must forgive me if I guess the name of one of their drum numbers wrong. I probably WILL get it wrong…

Now – before I forget, I want to give you the set list, and I might then say one or two things about some of my personal favourite moments. As the 2015 band brought back and re-vitalised two tracks from the fourth Crimson studio album, 1971’s “Islands” in the form of “The Letters” and “Sailor’s Tale”, the decision was apparently taken that the oft-maligned third Crimson album, 1970’s “Lizard, now deserved some air time as well, so as I sat there tonight, I got a couple of real shocks to my system in terms of, ‘oh my God, I know what THIS is…’   …in fact, that happened three times: twice for two tracks taken from 1970’s “Lizard” and probably the most surprising of all – a track from “Starless And Bible Black” (1974) entitled “Fracture”.  

I was startled when Robert started playing this familiar riff, and his guitar was giving him a little bit of trouble during the first couple of bars, but he managed to straighten out whatever was wrong, and then dived into a nearly-faultless version of “Fracture” which of course contains long passages of his patented “perpetual vertical and horizontal picking” which to hear and see live, was absolutely amazing – he somehow managed to work out this entire, extremely complex piece of music in the New Standard Tuning, and with ace violin-emulation from Jakko Jakszyk – the band pulled off a pretty ripping version of the tune.

But I am getting ahead of myself here – here is the set list:

Soundscapes

Hellhound Of Krim or Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row (Drum Trio)

Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part 1

Pictures Of A City

Cirkus

Fracture

The Battle Of Glass Tears

Meltdown

Red

The Letters

Sailor’s Tale

Epitaph

[INTERMISSION]

Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row or Hellhounds Of Krim (Drum Trio) 

The ConstruKction Of Light

Level Five

Suitable Grounds For The Blues

Unknown / New Song (Instrumental – featuring two guitars)

Vrooom

Easy Money

Starless

[ENCORE]

Banshee Legs Bell Hassle

Heroes

21st Century Schizoid Man

Finally, some very memorable moments for me…during the last section of “Pictures Of A City” Robert suddenly played an incredibly beautiful, long jazzy lick on his guitar that just shocked me – it was that good, and it just sounded so, so perfect in that moment, it really blew me away – brilliant!

When “Cirkus” started, I knew I was going to be bowled over by it, and it did not disappoint in any way. A powerful vocal from Jakko, and Mel had clearly spent many hours studying the original recording, has taken his already impossible, sleazy, beautiful, jazzy sax riffs and he’s gone and IMPROVED on them – meanwhile, new member Jeremy Stacey was playing the ominous Mellotron riff, as well as the piano introduction, switching between piano and Mellotron and drums effortlessly – an amazing performance, while Robert played the same riff on guitar, and would occasionally add additional Mellotrons to parts that required more than one – and in “Cirkus” you get this requirement.

Mel was absolutely spot on, and to hear this song performed live is a dream I never dared dream – and a few hours ago – I watched and listened to King Crimson playing one of my favourite tracks from “Lizard” – the dramatic and strange “Cirkus” with perfect Gordon Haskell bass lines from Tony Levin and a great Jakko vocal (not to mention, Jakko playing the famous very rapid classical sounding acoustic guitar parts that occur twice in the song – at an incredible tempo) – brilliant!

But strangely enough, what really, really blew my socks away, was a near perfect rendition of “The Battle Of Glass Tears” (which was originally the third section of the side long so-called “Lizard Suite” which originally ran as):

1. Prince Rupert Awakes

2. Bolero

3. The Battle Of Glass Tears

4. Big Top

So removing it from the context of that, and playing it as a single, live piece of music, was an inspired move, the lyrics are absolutely beautiful, and Jakko did a fantastic job of rendering original singer Gordon Haskell’s somewhat strange melodic vocal – and in doing so, made it into an even better vocal performance than the original – and the band, were in complete jazz stealth mode, all playing super quietly while Jakko sang this strange tale of a sort of dream battle with it’s amazing Peter Sinfield lyrics – it was the most surprising of all – and I had just heard both “Cirkus” followed by “Fracture” – both of which had blown me away,,,but when new member Jeremy Stacey started playing the eerie, strange mellotrons from “The Battle Of Glass Tears” I knew what it was instantly, or rather, where it came from, I knew every word, and I actually sang along quietly because it’s such a beautiful lyric.

The whole band just excelled on this short, very odd piece of music, which was literally snatched out of the middle of a much larger work, but, for me, it draws attention to a single song that I always felt was one of the best moments on the whole album – it’s certainly my favourite lyric on the album, and it’s also the first time you hear singer Gordon Haskell’s voice after the sort of fairy-tale voice of guest singer Jon Anderson on the first part, “Prince Rupert Awakes”. Haskell’s voice is an acquired taste, but I absolutely love his bass playing (perfectly emulated thanks to the good Mr. Levin) and his singing on “Lizard” – I think he is top notch, especially at interpreting the rather tricky Peter Sinfield lyrics.

“Lizard” has taken a lot of abuse over the years, sort of the unwanted jazz child of “In The Court” and “In The Wake” but I love all four of those earliest records, each in their own way – the fourth one being “Islands” of course – and I was SO very happy that they have retained the two tracks from “Islands” in the setlist, the show wouldn’t have been the same without them!

I know this won’t be a popular opinion, but I really tend to enjoy the tracks from “Lizard” and “Islands” more than the tracks from “In The Court” or “In The Wake”. That’s just me. Don’t get me wrong; I love “Epitaph” and “Schizoid Man” and “Pictures Of A City” but I just prefer hearing the rarer (and somewhat more eccentric) tracks from “Lizard” and “Islands”.

They introduced then, new for this tour, three “old” King Crimson songs, that King Crimson 2015 did NOT play – and those three songs, two from “Lizard” and one from “Starless And Bible Black” we’re probably my favourite moments of this concert. 
They also played what I believe was a new song, a sort of menacing two guitars piece that was quite short, but quite enjoyable, it had a slightly strange beginning featuring Robert Fripp playing a major chord up a half step, so something like F sharp major to G major, not unlike the beginning of “Jailhouse Rock” but then it immediately mutated into twin guitar Krimson territory – I don’t know what the name of it was, but it was pleasant enough.

Just prior to a roaring final encore of “21st Century Schizoid Man” (which was firing on all cylinders tonight my friends!) they did something else a bit unexpected – they played David Bowie’s song “Heroes”, with Jakko doing his best David Bowie vocal imitation, while Robert Fripp reprised his beautiful, soaring long guitar riff that has made the song so famous, that he originally recorded on the original version of the song from the David Bowie album of the same name, way back in 1980 – when it was Eno, Bowie and Fripp all working together in Berlin.

So that felt like a really nice send-off for David – Robert Fripp reminding us that it was his guitar on that song, but also offering up a really bright, poppy almost, version of the song with an excellent vocal and great supporting guitar from Jakko – while the rhythm section and Tony were just having the time of their lives – it sounded (and looked) really fun to play, and hearing Robert keeping that one note sustained for so long, over and over again, you forget that he is the absolute master of the long, sustained guitar note – and he doesn’t depend on a gadget (like the energy bows that I favour so much) – he just keeps that note going, somehow.

It was an impressive performance, when it ended, the familiar steam organ type sounds that are the recorded “prelude” or short intro piece that precedes “21st Century Schizoid Man” were playing through the speakers, and with a huge crashing chord sequence, we were off on the final track of the evening – it simply couldn’t be anything else, could it?

I loved every minute of this show, the skill and the musicianship and the professionalism on show, the virtuoso playing on show, is almost too much to take. I was alternately fascinated by the interplay between Jakko and Robert, and sometimes absolutely gobsmacked by riffs or ideas or techniques that both would employ, and some amazing guitar tones were also to be heard during this concert – great guitar sounds, including acoustic emulation from Jakko during Epitaph, the only other number we got tonight from the classic first album, “In the Court Of The Crimson King”.

But I am willing to give up the title track of that album, in exchange for “Cirkus”, “Fracture” and “The Battle Of Glass Tears” – especially the last one, whose lyrics are still rattling around my brain…

Burnt with dream and taut with fear

Dawn’s misty shawl upon them.

Three hills apart great armies stir

Spit oath and curse as day breaks.

Forming lines of horse and steel

By even yards, march forward.

I could not have dreamed in a billion years, that one day I would see and hear King Crimson play “The Battle Of Glass Tears” – It’s simply not possible. But – earlier this evening – I did just that – and it was gorgeous, too!

By all accounts, besides a very few technical issues, an excellent first foray for King Crimson 2016!

Now I can sleep happy!!

Peace and love

Somewhere near Aylesbury, waiting for night 2
Dave & Dawn

King Crimson – Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Scotland – 20150917

This then, is the second of three King Crimson gigs we are attending, the first of two shows at Edinburgh’s lovely old Usher Hall, on September 17th, three days after the first show we attended in Birmingham on 20150914; while boasting a similar set list to the show from the fourteenth, the Usher Hall Edinburgh show had a number of significant differences that are well worth noting.

First of all, is perspective; in Birmingham, we were off to the left side of Symphony Hall, slightly elevated, and back some distance from the stage, whereas in Edinburgh, we were in the stalls in the fourth row – directly in front of Pat’s drum kit with Mel just behind him…not bad at all.  So this time, still to the left but way up close in the stalls – we noticed quite a bit more detail – simply because we were so much nearer.

But first things first, the set list, which was pretty much unchanged from the show three days previous:

Taped Introduction (including the “Islands Rehearsal” snippet from the outro of the “Islands” album – in other words – the standard 2014/2015 Elements Tours taped intros – the “no photos please” vocal montage, followed by “Islands” rehearsal, and finally, the 1971 Voice Of Robert Fripp intoning the count of “1 2 3, 2 2 3″…) – which becomes the count in for:

Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part I

Red

Suitable Grounds For The Blues

Meltdown

The Construction Of Light

Level 5

Hellhounds Of Krim (??)

Pictures Of A City

Epitaph

Easy Money

Banshee Legs Bell Hassle

The Letters

Sailor’s Tale

Interlude (Taped audience sounds)

Starless

(Encore – after a well-deserved standing ovation for “Starless”:)

Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row (??)

The Court Of The Crimson King

21st Century Schizoid Man

 

Since the set list is essentially identical to the Monday night Birmingham show, I will focus in on differences and details that I observed this time, that I might have overlooked with the excitement of that first show on Monday night; plus, sitting so close at the Edinburgh show, I was able to see the players in incredible detail. My new 10x binoculars helped significantly with this – if I wanted to see in close-up, what notes Robert or Jakko or Tony were playing – the binoculars allowed me to get in really close on the action, and observe chord patterns, note patterns, and playing styles in intense detail. Being in the fourth row gave us a great view of the band, but having the binoculars on top of being so close, gave me super-close up HD Guitar Vision – it was brilliant.

They all played well in Birmingham on Monday, but in Edinburgh last night…they played even better.

There were a couple of mishaps, so I shall get those out of the way, some mysterious mid to low frequency feedback was plaguing the band during “Pictures Of A City”, it was quite persistent and it ran for perhaps 40 or 50 seconds, a low, irritating non-musical tone; the band forged on as if it wasn’t happening, until eventually, the sound man (presumably) quenched it.  It returned again later, I think during Epitaph, for a shorter period of time, but that was the last of it, thankfully.
The beginning of “Easy Money” was slightly marred by an out of tune guitar (Jakko’s, I think) but then turned out fine, in fact for me, it’s a huge highlight because it’s one of the only instances where RF really tries to play a 70’s style Fripp sustained guitar solo, and that solo was a cracker, really beautiful, liquid distortion and cracked Wah pedal action…gorgeous guitar tone from Robert’s Axe FXII.

 

One of the other instances of that beautiful sustained guitar tone is Robert playing the exquisitely beautiful melody of “Starless”, however, at the end of one of those solos, his final bend ended up in a truly bum note – a rarity for Fripp.  Ever the professional, he simply looked at Jakko, and carried on as if nothing had happened.

Possibly because we were sat so close to Pat and Mel, I really noticed their playing this time, and I would say that Mel played even more spectacularly amazing sax and flute in Edinburgh, than in Birmingham, where he was awesome.  So better than perfect, really – the solos were so tight, so intense, and he absolutely steals the show with his soloing in “Pictures Of A City”, “The Letters”, “Sailor’s Tale” and “21st Century Schizoid Man” – his playing was absolutely stellar on those tracks in particular, he was consistent and excellent throughout.

Pat – well, what can I say, Pat is the master, and is my personal favourite of the three extraordinary drummers.  His intense, powerful playing on “Epitaph” and “In The Court Of The Crimson King” once again, channelling the great Michael Giles…was simply astonishing to witness at close quarters. Pat was amazing throughout the show, and I could really appreciate his contributions to the drumming really well indeed at this particular gig.

And, impressively, this time, we could hear the bass and the Stick, much, much better, so bring able to hear what Tony was playing, better than on Monday night, was great – I particularly love the verve with which he attacks the lolloping bass line of “Sailor’s Tale” – he sounds great at all times, really in tune and doing very musical, very good work on the electric string bass, the Stick, or the bass guitar, Tony always sounded really good.

But then, this is a band where everyone sounds good, all the time, and the amount of care and detail that goes into the band’s sound is truly overwhelming. Just watching the percussion section during the opening number, the incredible 2015 rendition of the 1973 classic “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part I” is a lesson in musical co-ordination; all three drummers are playing many different percussion instruments to add atmosphere and ambience during the quieter sections, then sitting down simultaneously to come charging in for the heavy metal section.

Watching Pat was a revelation during this, he had clearly studied the original track well, and he picked up a myriad of strange percussion devices, and operated them at certain points in time during the “lulls” in the song – with military precision.  Then that heavy metal section would come up again, with Jakko wailing away on the high, bendy lead guitar notes, Robert, playing the chords (and often, during this concert, that was the case) and the three drummers all come in on the downbeat, and also, end each bar with a cymbal smack – and hearing the three of them, playing their hearts out underneath that ominous set of power chords – just sounded amazing.

“Red” followed immediately, and again, the band was confident, Jakko playing the long, ascending sustained lead guitar line, while Robert handled the chords; Robert played the flanged “stand-alone” chords on the “middle section”, leaving Tony and Jakko, with some assistance from Mel, to handle the beautiful melody that plays over the flanged guitar chords – and then, back into that wonderful E to F# progression, which then finally leads back to the wonderful ascending guitar from Jakko – and Mel joins in for the last few notes, so they both end up on a stretched high note that is held for just the right amount of time…perfection.

I can’t really add a lot to my previous blog’s comments on the “new” songs that appear at this point in the set, although I did find myself liking “Suitable Grounds For The Blues” a bit more than the first time I’d heard it, way back on Monday night – it, and it’s companion, “Meltdown” – are just not as convincing to me as the earlier material is.  And therein lay the difficulty – the repertoire they are playing, spans 1969 – 2003, and includes some of the most incredible of Fripp compositions and other writers’ contributions – the lyrics of Peter Sinfield are a huge part of the tracks that they perform from 1969’s “In The Court Of ‘The Crimson King”, 1970’s “In The Wake Of Poseidon”, and 1971’s “Islands” (sadly, no live versions of anything from 1970’s “Lizard”, the third album) and other contributors such as Adrian Belew, whose guitar parts on “The Construction Of Light” are absolutely brilliant – but, fair dues – Jakko played them just as perfectly and just as beautifully as Adrian ever did – and to be honest, as much as I love the music of Adrian Belew, and I liked his role in King Crimson – I am actually of the belief that Jakko is a better choice, because of his knowledge of the early catalogue, and he’s a fine, serious singer, too.

So I like the fact that Jakko is there, for example, his acoustic guitar emulations on the two quieter tracks from “In The Court Of The Crimson King” are just so spot on, he does the finger picking perfectly WHILE he sings the beautiful Greg Lake vocal melody with beautiful lyrics from Peter Sinfield!  A very beautiful example of multi-tasking – Jakko gives us the acoustic guitar, and the lead vocal, leaving Robert free to play the beautiful lead guitar parts on both “Epitaph” and “The Court Of The Crimson King” – beautiful work from both guitarists.

I am still astonished by the unexpected presence of “Easy Money” in this band’s set list, but there it is, and after a shaky beginning with an out of tune guitar, it quickly turned into one of the best songs of the night, because of Robert‘s amazing 1970s style lead guitar playing, not to mention Jakko’s brilliant vocal, and Tony doing his best to play like John Wetton – and mostly, succeeding at it.  A great rendition of a great song – complete with laughing machine at the end from Pat – just like on the album.

My favourite part of the concert then arrives – the two songs from “Islands”, and again, a delicate, beautiful rendition of “The Letters” with Fripp playing super high octave chords with a beautiful guitar sound, and Jakko playing the other picked part in time, and singing the beautiful, beautiful vocal – one of Boz’s best vocals, I believe – and then, there is an incredibly powerful part, where Robert plays some amazing, super sustained “Frippy” guitar lines, before the song begins to go…a bit mad courtesy of the amazing saxophone skills of Mel Collins, who blows his way through both “The Letters” and the second of the two tracks, which follows immediately, the instrumental “Sailor’s Tale” in astonishing form, with powerful, melody, and grace.

Mel is so amazing on both of these tracks, the accuracy with which he’s tried to re-create the original parts, while at the same time, improving and updating them – it’s just an astonishing effort on his part, and his playing breathes new life into these two songs.  Jakko’s vocal on “The Letters” is possibly my favourite vocal of the night, I love the way he sings this song, right up to the a cappella ending –  which he does just perfectly – a brilliant performance.

Once the band have played “The Letters” and “Sailor’s Tale”, two tracks from my personal favourite of the early King Crimson records, I could die happy, but, things progress, and we end up in the beauty of “Starless”, where I must mention the remarkably talented Bill Rieflin, who plays mellotron on so many of these tracks, the accurate arrangements he uses are a testament to how much he cares about getting it right, and the mellotron sounds are perfect, and the playing is perfect – and on “Starless”, it’s so, so beautiful – with Robert‘s amazing, thick sustained lead guitar line, and Mel’s sinuous horn parts snaking in between, it’s a huge highlight of the night, and the excitement of the final section, after the long instrumental build up, is undeniable.

Despite Robert’s unfortunate note in the middle of the verses, this version of “Starless” brought the band to standing position, and, brought the audience to it’s feet as well – and the applause was truly thunderous as we’d just been assaulted by a dozen of some of the most amazing progressive music ever written.  And when the band walk off, the crowd is clapping in rhythm for their return – until they do return, to play us out with the last two offerings, both from that famous debut 1969 album, “In The Court Of The Crimson King” – the title track, as the penultimate offering, followed by “21st Century Schizoid Man” complete with recorded intro (the “Wind” sessions result) – and this was another great rendition of “Schizoid Man”, with one slight disappointment – I hadn’t really noticed this at Birmingham, but I am definitely sure about it at Edinburgh – there is no guitar solo!

Robert plays the beginning of the original solo, and then does a short descending lead guitar, which is an intentional bridge to Mel, who picks up the notes from Robert, and then takes the solo proper – and Mel is great at this, he always had a solo on “Schizoid Man” back in the day, so he is the perfect player for the job, and this was no exception – he played a blinder.  But then, as the song progressed, there was a drum solo, and then, they came back in to play the “precision section” – which went flawlessly – and then to the last verse and the ending – which was dead silence at the climax of sustained rock-burn-out noise – brilliant!!  The crowd loved it, and it was a great version – but, strangely – no guitar solo.  It worked, it’s great with Mel handling the solo, but I would have loved it if Robert and Mel had each had a solo (as they used to, back in 1972) – but, this is the 2015 arrangement, so I guess that’s how it goes now 🙂

Overall, despite some annoying feedback and the very, very rare issues with the music, this was a really well-played show, and it just makes me look forward to our next and final of three shows, in Utrecht, Holland, on September 24th – I can’t wait !!

One of the things I’ve noticed about previous versions of King Crimson is that, if you listen to a series of concerts over time, you generally speaking, find improvement – parts are played better, arrangements are tweaked and re-saved, and musicians find better and more perfected ways to do things – so, over time, they tend to get better – and I realise I haven’t so far heard much of a series, but I can say, that over the three day period between Monday and Thursday. that there is improvement.

One thing that was easy to observe, was the difference in audience reception. In Birmingham, the applause was not nearly as loud or persistent after the main set, there was no rhythmic clapping to call the band back to the stage, while in Edinburgh, the Scottish crowd were on their feet and shouting for more, applauding really loudly, then, clapping rhythmically – a much much better audience response, which in turn, made the players respond positively – so while in some ways, the Birmingham show might have been more technically “polished”, here in Edinburgh, there was more emotion, more audience interaction, and in the case of one Mr. Mel Collins, some incredibly passionate horn soloing – really beautiful work, just out of this world solos on every track – the man is impossibly talented.  And when Robert Fripp and Mel Collins join forces to solo, one at a time, or together / trading / overlapping solos – it just rocks.

Both concerts had high points and low points, but I felt that the Edinburgh show was more relaxed, with a much more receptive audience, so at least in that sense, it was a “better” show – but in my mind – both of these concerts were absolutely remarkable musical experiences, once- in-a-lifetime – except, I get to see it three times in a life time 🙂

 

 

See you at Utrecht on the 24th !!!!

Happy Krimsoning !!

 

 

Dave

 

 

 

 

King Crimson – Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK – 20150914

for us, the first of three 2015 King Crimson concerts from the UK / Europe leg of the tour, took place in the elegant Birmingham Symphony Hall, on Monday evening, September 14th, 2015. We travelled down to Birmingham on the train, and spent a couple of relaxing days pottering about the place, taking photographs, reading, and for me in any case, drinking far too many Starbucks soya Mochas….

curiously, just a few hours before show time on Monday afternoon, on the DGM site, we noticed an advert for booking a pre-show talk with David Singleton, so we were privileged to get an extra 45 minutes of Crim-related material, courtesy of the very knowledgeable Mr. Singleton.

David discussed some of the recording processes and the challenges therein, and played examples of “before” and “tracks” (of “Lament” among others), where the board recording was mostly drums and vocals, and the rest of the concert was pitch-matched bootlegs, and, with a lot of patience and sonic necromancy, these are careful remixed so you can actually hear the individual instruments. It was a very interesting talk indeed, and David even treated us to some unreleased fly on the wall recordings from the forthcoming “THRAK” box set, we heard a session where “One Time” was being developed, and that was very cool.

At the end of the talk, which touched on King Crimson, Robert Fripp solo, orchestral soundscapes, the Vicar, and everything DGM, David then took questions, most of which were about forthcoming or existing releases, but some interesting points were raised.

Then, quite suddenly, it was time, show time, so the forty or fifty of us who signed up for the talk, dispersed to our seats in anticipation of seeing the legendary “seven-headed Beast of Crimson” perform live, at last. I’d been anticipating this moment for many months, and could not quite believe that it had finally arrived, at long, long last.

And I have to applaud this venue, there was zero stress, no queuing, no waiting, we sat in Starbucks drinking coffee (which was located inside the Symphony Building, a few steps away from the venue’s doors) prior to the show, made the obligatory visit to the merchandise stand, and then into the venue and our seats…which afforded us of a great view of the band, at approximately the same vertical “level” as the Crimson back line – i.e. at eye level of Collins, Levin, Jakszyk, and Fripp, with the three drummers at the “level” just beneath us.  The ideal place to see and hear from 🙂

For me, this tour is like a dream version of the band, with Mel Collins back in the fold, and the opportunity then that this gives the band, to recreate a large number of archival Crimson songs requiring flute, soprano, alto, or tenor sax – along with the presence of Jakko Jakszyk, whose knowledge of and mastery of King Crimson material 1969 – 1974 is absolutely unparalleled, he knows these songs as well as or even, dare I say it, better than RF himself – due to his involvement with the 21st Century Schizoid Band (of which, Collins was also a member). I was fortunate enough to see the 21CSB live in San Juan Capistrano which was in itself, a remarkable experience, so I’ve seen, and heard, first hand just how well Jakko knows his Early Crimson 🙂

So with the flutes and saxes more than ably handled by Collins; and lead vocals and the “other” lead guitar handled by Jakszyk, that’s a firm foundation to build on, especially when tackling the earliest Crimson material. The sparkle there though, comes from the fact that for a number of those pieces, it was Collins who originally played them, in the studio and live, so the horn and flute parts are very historically accurate but actually, better, because of course, Mel has grown as a player, he is better than ever and his contributions to this band, cannot be underestimated.

A lot of my excitement and anticipation for these songs was around having the impossibly ever-young looking Mel Collins back in the band with Robert, and watching them trade solos, with big smiles on their faces…it was almost as if the intervening time ( some 43 years since they last shared a stage!! ) had somehow magically disappeared, and we were back in 1972 – especially during something like the sonically raging “Sailor’s Tale” – the guitar / sax interplay and soloing was mind-bendingly good.

And…the inclusion, in this concert, for me, of two tracks from my personal favourite “early” King Crimson album, the much-maligned and misunderstood “Islands” (the fourth KC album from 1971) made my experience complete…I got to see Collins and Fripp play their way through both “The Letters” and the incredible “Sailor’s Tale” – two amazing tracks from a great album. But I am getting ahead of the story here…

When we entered the venue, the first thing that strikes you is the new front line: three drum sets, a DW Drums set (Mastelotto), a Gretsch set (Rieflin – who also doubled as the main mellotronist throughout) and a SONOR set (Harrison) set up in what is a first in rock music: a front line of three co-ordinated drummers. The drum arrangements ( as arranged by drum section leader Gavin Harrison ) were absolutely amazing: precise, powerful, and innovative.

I happen to know what the brief was from Robert, to the drum section – in just three words:

RF: “Re-invent Rock Drumming”

In my opinion, after seeing this concert, I feel that the three drummers have done exactly that, no less. A remarkable musical achievement – truly unusual and wonderfully creative and innovative. In a word – awesome!

The drum duties were spilt up in the most unusual ways, I remember for example, that for “Sailor’s Tale”, Pat and Gavin fell silent, leaving just Bill Rieflin to re-create Ian Wallace’s “flying cymbals” drum part, so that track had a unique sound: one drummer!

For most tracks, two or all three would be active, each taking different parts, maybe one would be on hi hat, another, on snare, another on low tom-toms, however it was arranged, it worked, and it worked really well. The drum section was extraordinary, and they sounded great being in the “front line”, really powerful and incredibly well organised in sound.

Bringing up the “back line” then, from left to right, were Mel Collins; the redoubtable and very tall Tony Levin on bass guitar, stick and harmony vocals; Jakko Jakszyk on guitar and lead vocals, and finally at far right, young Robert Fripp on lead guitar. The idea of having the bass guitar, and the three “soloists” in the back line is an extraordinary idea, and visually, it was a very striking arrangement. For the audience, it meant that you got the rhythm first, and the melodies and harmonies, second…very odd, but, it works.

The only slight sonic disappointment was that for some reason, the bass was sometimes quite inaudible ( very upsettingly, in particular, during the bass solo of “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part I” ), which, after a taped introduction, was the first number the band played.

Regarding that Introduction, first, we got the recording of the band asking us not to take photos      during the show, followed by the “Islands Rehearsal” clip from the very end of the “Islands” album, which the band played live over, a short flute solo, a few guitar sounds….leading up to Robert Fripp’s voice, teleported from 1971, counting in the orchestra with a droned “1 2 3, 2 2 3” after which, the drum section launched into a brief drum performance which quickly mutated into the familiar Jamie Mui-led intro to “LTIA Part I”. This is the same intro as used on the official live album “Live At The Orpheum“.

I had never dared dream that I would ever see any version of King Crimson play “LTIA Part I”…I never saw the 70s or 60s Crimson play live, my first KC concert was 1981’s “Discipline” tour, I saw the band then in 1981, 1982, and 1984, and then again, in 1995, I saw the double trio, who did play “21st Century Schizoid Man”, “Red” and “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part II”, but I really didn’t think there would ever BE a King Crimson that COULD play “LTIA Part I” – until now.

It was a real shock, and when the full force of three drum kits slammed in, with Jakko and Robert doubling the heavy metal power chords, well, I about jumped out of my seat – the sheer power and volume after the very quiet percussion beginning was great. And you can bet that I zoomed in with my brand new binoculars to watch Robert Fripp play those fantastical riffs…which he did, with aplomb…no problem. That impossible Fripp-riff from 1973, perfectly executed in New Standard Tuning in 2015!! Those guitar parts are just amazing, and both guitarists really shined on this piece, Robert playing the coda with real clarity…Jakko playing both violin melodies and guitar parts, it was a really good performance of a notoriously complex and difficult piece of music – amazing!!!

Next up, the band launched immediately into “Red”, which in its lifetime, has undergone a few different “live” iterations, first, the very wild Adrian Belew v Robert Fripp “guitars” version played by the 80s band, then again, in 1995, the double trio adding two basses and two drummers to the patented live “Red” formula; mutating it further still from the studio version…,until now, finally, in 2015, when it underwent it’s most radical transformation.

Led by a new sort of “lolloping wave” drum part, where the three drummers in turn played a riff across the toms, one after the other, while the back line valiantly worked to keep the bass, chords and other melodic parts of ‘Red” in sync, it was a wonderful new way to experience “Red”, and I for one liked the new almost anti-Bruford drum part….the drum section’s new interpretation of what “Red” requires in the percussion department was radical and inspired – excellent. Visually it was quite unique too, because it formed a real “wave” as the drummers each took a turn, from one end of the drum section through to the other, it looked and sounded amazing.

After this initial opening salvo of a track from “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic” and the title track of “Red”, it was time for new 2015 King Crimson material, with which I was, and still largely am, utterly unfamiliar with. The first of a number of “new” King Crimson songs followed “Red”, which was also the first song of the evening to feature vocals from Jakko, “Suitable Grounds For The Blues” caught me off guard, I wasn’t really ready, but there it was.

Jakko was in fine voice, I know he is not considered to be an incredible vocalist by some, but I think he accounts for himself quite well, especially given that basically, he is playing lead guitar and singing lead vocals at the same time, as well as on some of the earliest material, playing Fripp’s original acoustic guitar parts using an ‘acoustic guitar” simulator effect of some kind. So he has a lot on his plate, a lot of responsibility, but he has the quiet confidence to pull this kind of musical multitasking off without incident.

“Suitable Grounds For The Blues” was no exception to this, Jakko delivering a flawless vocal while playing complex guitar lines, interlocking lead guitars with Robert Fripp while singing is a talent, and Jakko sounded great on this track. For me, I was a bit underwhelmed by it, there was no super memorable guitar parts or vocals to bring it up to above average, and I remember thinking that despite the fact that they played the piece very well, that for me, it seemed like one of the more or even most non-descript pieces of music that Crimson has ever done…nothing really remarkable or unique about it, nothing that really sticks in memory. I hope that in time, I discover more that is unique and good about the new material – it takes time sometimes with newer, unfamiliar songs.

This was followed immediately with another new vocal number, “Meltdown”, which again, the band played well, but myself being unfamiliar with the piece, I found it, once again, slightly underwhelming as a song, although the performance was excellent. Another good vocal from Jakko, very professional and very well done.

Following these two new tracks, the concert’s chronometer switched from 2015 Crimson to 2000s King Crimson, where we were treated to two of the best and most recognisable of tracks fromI A that time period: “The Construction Of Light” followed immediately by the powerful, ominous drive of “Level Five”.

I love the new arrangement of “The Construction Of Light”, featuring new parts for Mel, mostly on flute, have been integrated into the song perfectly; Jakko demonstrating that he can not only imitate Robert Fripp really well, but also, Adrian Belew, and he made short work of the interlocking Belew / Fripp melodic interwoven guitars that dominate “The Construction Of Light”, while other important changes were made: the vocals are entirely removed, and as the track nears the end, where normally Adrian Belew sang the tune out, suddenly, his missing vocal is replaced by a small blinder of a Mel Collins flute solo, and then the song is over,..but, after a very shirt silence, the awesome Tony Levin bass line that powers “Level Five” is underway, and this gives the shared lead guitar team of Jakszyk and Fripp, an even more complicated and serious lead guitar workout than the very intricate, complex “The Construction Of Light”.
So, from the very, very difficult to the very nearly impossible they go, with the lone bass line of Tony Levin beautifully and easily underpinning the twin lead-guitar attack for the duration of “Level Five” – a song rumoured to possible actually be, “Larks Tongues In Aspic Part V” but this is unconfirmed at press time. I always think I don’t particularly care for this song, until I see them play it, and I realise that it has become a modern Crimson “classic” – “Level Five” live, in 2015 – was simply brilliant!!

Next, we were treated to the very short but very excellent, “Banshee Legs Bell Hassle” which is a fascinating drum / percussion / electronics solo piece from Gavin Harrison ( who is also the track’s writer ). I was familiar with this new piece of Crimson music because it appears on the official “Live At The Orpheum” live CD, and it’s actually a really nice little tune – performed both effortlessly and flawlessly by Harrison, who showed no trace of nervousness at any point in the proceedings.
After the gamelan-like sounds of Gavin’s solo piece, the introduction of the astonishing “Pictures Of A City” just frosted my socks, with Mel honking away furiously and joyously on his tenor sax, playing the fabulous “spy’ melodic lines in perfect unison, harmony or counterpoint with Robert Fripp, who reprised his original contributions on guitar. Jakko had the pure joy task of singing yet another brilliant Peter Sinfield lyric, and for me, this track, this performance, was a true musical highlight of the night, another song that I never dreamed I would experience “live” in my lifetime, but, there it was: a great vocal and guitar from Jakko, fantastic bass, guitar and sax precision “spy” parts, excellent new three drummer drum part – a sprawling, complex and very musical arrangement of the song, from 1970, that tried to top 1969’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” for complexity – and very nearly succeeded in doing so.
This was a really powerful performance, with both Fripp and Collins on absolute top form, playing with precision and grace – a fantastic moment in time, an unforgettable version of “Pictures Of A City” sung with passion by Jakko, and played with so much power by the whole band – an ensemble performance, perfectly co-ordinated between the seven players – a true team effort, a huge win in my book – a real highlight for me. Beautiful work.
Then the time machine dialled us ever further back, back from 1970 to 1969, and for me, the first of two tracks from “In The Court Of The Crimson King” that I simply was not expecting at all – the first of which, was “Epitaph”. This one featured Jakko’s encyclopaedic knowledge of early Crimson, where he simultaneously played Robert Fripp’s acoustic guitar parts, while doing a very credible imitation of Greg Lake’s classic, mournful vocal. Fripp played beautifully on this one, recreating his fast strummed parts perfectly, while Jakko handled all of the “acoustic” picking duties. But then, the band’s secret weapon was revealed, Bill Reiflin, his back now to us as he turned away from his drum kit towards his mellotron, loaded with all of the authentic “Streetly” mellotron samples, very, very precisely and carefully reproducing the original parts as played by Fripp and Ian MacDonald.

The historical accuracy of both the samples used (making the strings, flutes, horns or choir voices sound exactly like the 1969 album, and, the accuracy with which Rieflin plays the mellotron parts, perfectly copying the parts on the original album)…the addition of this super accurate and authentic mellotron part, coupled with Jakko’s impassioned vocal performance, really brought an amazing sparkle to a song with such a serious lyric. I never, ever dreamed, in a billion, billion, years, that I would see and hear King Crimson play “Epitaph” – but I just did, last night. I still can’t quite believe it, I’m pinching myself…”Epitaph” live.  I really heard and saw that! Last night.

Now this is where things get a bit hazy. There were quite a number of “drum solos” during this performance, some of which I understand, are actual songs with titles, and the next piece, as far as I was able to ascertain, was called “Hell Hounds Of Krim”. Now you know just about as much as I do about this song, every time this trio of drummers played, it sounded amazing, and these “all drums” songs were no exception – they sounded great! Three of the most inventive players around, each with their own style and sound, working together on a three part drum performance – it was simply magic. Another top notch performance of new material.

I know I keep saying “I never dreamed in a million years that I would see and hear King Crimson play THIS SONG”…well. I can tell you…and I will, over and over again…I never dreamed in a million, trillion years, that I would witness them playing “Easy Money”, but there it was. Again. Jakko did a very credible imitation of John Wetton’s vocal, while Fripp took on the difficult guitar parts. When it got to the first guitar solo, Robert got an amazing guitar tone out of his Axe-FXII, a very accurate 70s cracked-Wah liquid sustained “Frippy’ solo sound, and he played a vintage style “solo” using that amazing sound. It was phenomenal, and I was absolutely flabbergasted by the quality of that solo, and of all the parts – Fripp absolutely nailing the high speed violin riffs near the very end, with perfect timing and expert intent, absolutely on the mark…”just making easy money”…this is where Pat then fires off the “laughing box” at the end, just like on the original record.  but Robert was smoking hot and I won’t forget that amazing solo any time soon.

I could not really believe that I’d just heard and seen “Easy Money” live. Perhaps to give me time to recover, they then played “Interlude” which was just about one minute of tape, of an audience clapping and talking. Now at this point, based on previous set lists, one of two things could have happened, the next two tracks, might be, “The Talking Drum” followed by “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part II”, in other words, following “Easy Money” that would be the whole of side two of the original vinyl “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic” album, or, they could divert back from 1973 to 1971, and “go Islands”…

I said aloud, during the last few seconds of Interlude ‘please be ‘The Letters”‘ and an instant later, “The Letters” started up. For me, this was it, the high point of the concert. Jakko’s voice is most similar to Boz’s voice, and I think he sings this song really well, which really adds to the historical accuracy. Both Fripp and Jakszyk play really delicate picked guitar chords during the verses, and the whole band played this piece with such delicacy…until the super loud fuzz guitar and honking tenor sax part that is…which is really sudden, and really powerful yet another awesome demonstration of dynamics, from the whisper to the scream…

The song then moves on until it reaches its remarkable vocal climax, where Jakko is “impaled on nails of ice…and wait for emerald fire”…this song is so intense, and so strange, but the band gave it everything, took it seriously, and delivered it well, in a beautiful, unforgettable (for me, anyway) rendition.

and then I held my breath one more time, according to previous set lists, the next track should be “Sailor’s Tale” – so as the Bill Rieflin-powered, perfectly reproduced mystery mellotrons of “The Letters” faded out, I had a long moment of fear…until suddenly, Tony Levin and Bill Rieflinh » started up the fabulous bass and drum backing of “Sailor’s Tale” – which then gave the three back line soloists the chance to truly shine…first, the awesome sax riff, with dual long sustained guitar notes from our two guitar heroes…after a few precision reiterations of that, it then gets to the truly exciting bit, where both Collins and Fripp solo wildly, trade solos, play together, play crazily…it’s a truly wonderful instrumental jam. So here is my “broken record” speech again: I never dreamed in a million years that I would see and hear not one, but two amazing tracks from “Islands” my personal favourite of the early King Crimson albums.

so the double whammy shock of “The Letters / Sailor’s Tale” left me reeling, Mel’s screaming saxes and Robert’s wild lead guitar playing, including bends…it was very odd to see RF bending strings again in tracks like “Sailor’s Tale” or “Epitaph” – these two “Islands” songs, brought back in 2015 from 1971, probably at the suggestion of Jakko, who like myself, is also very fond of “Islands”, just made my evening complete, I was so pleased that this was an “Islands” night rather than a “Larks’ Tongues” night…although I do also hope to see the set list with “The Talking Drum / LTIA Part II”, but after tonight, now I can die happy!! because I saw and heard both “The Letters” AND “Sailor’s Tale” live – something I literally would have thought impossible until THIS King Crimson formed.

Then the time travel machine jumped forward again, to the beautiful, exquisite piece that is 1974’s “Starless” – more perfect mellotron parts, Mel Collins effortlessly re-creating both his own horn parts but also, Ian McDonald’s horn parts, creating a perfect amalgam of both…Jakko, tackling another difficult-to-imitate John Wetton vocal.

When the song reaches the slow buildup section, with the long, long picked guitar notes with bass figure, there was a slight problem with tuning at the start of that section, which eventually sorted itself out by the time we got to the very exciting conclusion of the song…Fripp playing that amazing, liquid, distorted lead guitar melody, again, with string bending, sharing the melody with the horns, a beautiful song, great vocal by Jakko, great bass from Tony, and beautiful soloing from Robert and Mel. Now, I had previously seen a version of “Starless” live, when I saw the 21st Century Schizoid Band play it, with the late ian Wallace on drums….but now, it’s “Starless” with Robert Fripp AND Mel Collins, it was just wonderful as performed by the new “Seven-headed Beast Of Crim”, a truly lovely performance, nicely done.

Time now for more “drum solos” that are apparently songs, this time, it’s (apparently) “The Devil Dogs Of Desolation Row” again, this trio of ultra professionals could make any percussion piece sound great. So another high quality 2015 percussion workout from Pat, Bill and Gavin. Great stuff.

For the final number of the main set, another impossible track from the distant past – the title track from 1969’s “In The Court Of The Crimson King”, again, featuring the historically and musically accurate Jakko Jakzsyk on mock-acoustic guitar and lead vocals. Another standout vocal from Jakko, singing some of Peter Sinfield’s most famous and most amazing lyrics…perfect reproductions of the original flute parts from Mel…Robert reprising his original lead guitar parts in a really accurate and beautiful way…another classic Crimson number from the renowned first album.

And that was that, the end of the show, “In The Court Of The Crimson King” and I wanted to mention something interesting, planned into the drumming, for all of the tracks that originally featured Michael Giles on drums, I got the feeling that Pat Mastelotto felt it was his duty, his calling, to emulate sone of the incredibly powerful Giles drum rolls, and with real power…and he did just that. On several occasions, I was watching him play through the binoculars, when he would let loose an inhuman burst of speed, playing in the same uncanny, impossible way that Michael Giles used to. It was an astonishing thing to witness, and you could feel Pat’s desire to emulate what Michael played, because it was so much about the drums, in those classic pieces (I am thinking of “Epitaph” and “In The Court Of The Crimson King” here).

Often during the long outros of the songs, Giles would suddenly play something impossible…and Pat did exactly the same thing, on a few different occasions during the night. So it was awesome that Pat did this, a real, living tribute to the critical part that Michael Giles (who, by the way, is Jakko’s father-in-law) played in the original music from that first album, his long powerful rolls were critical to the early Crimson’s sound.

To be fair, there were moments when each of the drummers did things equivalent to this, channelling Ian Wallace, channelling Bill Bruford,and young Gavin Harrison very nearly equalled Pat’s power and majesty – nearly.  I would say that ex-Ministry Bill Rieflin is the gentlest of the three, with the lightest touch maybe; but it’s unfair to compare, as he had to leave the drums and play mellotron for much of the set. So Gavin and Pat got the lion’s share of the power drumming :-), but when Bill was free to join them, he rocked just as hard…the three of them are really well matched in every way.

The band left the stage to standing ovations, and then returned for one final song: “21st Century Schizoid Man’ – which rocked the house. Tony was especially good on this one, doing his best to out-play Greg Lake on the bass…while everyone else took a turn at soloing, including the drummers…Mel took an amazing sax solo, and both Robert and Jakko played some great guitar. And then, there was the famous “precision part” near the end,  where the band play a riff, stop, okay a riff, stop, and so on, and of course, the seven of them knocked that bit on the head…Jakko had a great time with the vocal on this one, I think he sounded really good on it.

All in all…a show full of surprises, full of unexpected joys, full of songs that I never dreamed in a billion, trillion, gazillion years I would ever get to see my favourite band in the world play – but last night, I did…I really did.

This remarkable group of seasoned musicians have worked together to create something truly unique, a group where the three drummers are out front, and those who normally solo or support, become the back line…and that strange strange configuration – works. Really, really works. The selection of songs, old and new, is remarkable, and the sense of history here is so strong, carried forward by musicians, old and new – this is also remarkable.

A really, really good show. Enjoyable on so many different levels, superb musicianship, passionate delivery, and a first ever look back across the entire King Crimson catalogue, this band with its front and back lines strangely swapped, really gives you a run for your money – and just about anything might happen – a flute replaces a voice; a guitar becomes a violin, and Robert Fripp bends his strings again, most beautifully, on “Starless” and “Epitaph” and “In The Court Of The Crimson King”.

Indeed.

on the road to red…

Impressions, feelings, memories. a journey made by my favourite band of all time – King Crimson – across the USA and Canada – ending in some professionally recorded gigs and ultimately, to that final gig, on July 1, 1974, in New York’s Central Park – the end of an era – the end of the original King Crimson which had existed in one form or another since 1969.

Ten very diverse albums, embracing prog, jazz, rock and musics in between; countless tours, one of the most road-tested bands of all time – and in many cases, Fripp, the band leader, would work in reverse: instead of recording an album and then going out and playing it, he would “rehearse” the band by going on the road, and then once the songs were worked in, then it’s time to record them – a wonderful way of working, a method which gave us “Starless and Bible Black” – a studio album that is mostly live.

“The Road To Red” if you haven’t heard, is Fripp’s latest “attack on culture”: simply, it’s as many of the 1974 live shows, from the US/Canadian tour, that could be eked out of whatever tapes existed, brought together on 21 CDs for your listening pleasure (yes, I said 21) – if you have a few days free to listen!  It’s an impressive feat, and actually, given that some of the source tapes are dodgy bootleg cassettes, the set as a whole is extremely listenable, because, the occasional lapse in sound quality aside, this band was on fire – they went out each night to try and change the world, just a little bit – and every night, they were rewarded with something memorable.

now, we are reaping that same reward, but with the added time, these performances seem even more extraordinary – this was a band with a particular musical vision, and they stuck to that vision – night after night.

It’s not all perfect – things happen, as Robert once said “a foot slips on a volume pedal…” but it’s pretty damn consistent, and given that they were using not one but two of that most temperamental of instruments, the mellotron, it’s amazing that things didn’t break down more than they do.

There are no surprises here in terms of musicianship, except perhaps how very effective David Cross could be with his extremely distorted electric piano, or in occasional quiet moments, on the violin, there is almost no need to describe just how incredibly well the rhythm section play on this set, it’s an object lesson in power and precision, the Bill Bruford / John Wetton team, topped with the amazing guitar histrionics of Mr. Robert Fripp himself – soloing with passion, power and even humour – there is one moment during “Easy Money” where Fripp tries to get Wetton to laugh, and it’s there in almost every take of the track, Wetton trying to sing but instead, listening to and laughing out loud at whatever silly riff Robert has inserted into “Easy Money” on this particular night.

I said there were no surprises here, but what I mean by that is that there are no surprises that these four players play so, so well, individually, and as a unit, but, there ARE surprises, sometimes, something will happen one night that doesn’t happen on any other night.  Perhaps it’s the guitar solo in “Lament”, which may sound much the same from night to night until one night, when Fripp decides it’s time to try something completely different, and holds one note for ages as the start of his “solo” – and then plays a blinder that is nothing like previous “Lament” solos. The next night – back to the “normal” solo.

Or, Robert might decide that tonight, the guitar solo for “Easy Money” is going to be done double time, and when he comes in with said solo, the ferocity, the determination, is truly awe-inspiring – the band are very comfortable with these tracks, and they don’t mind deviating from the script – in fact, it’s positively encouraged – and from night to night, each of the four will change up their parts, just for the sheer joy of seeing what might happen…

And sometimes, what happens is remarkable.  There are some truly beautiful renditions of King Crimson classics here, and it’s especially gratifying to have so many versions of “Fracture” and “Starless” to luxuriate in – personally, I can’t get enough of either track.

For me, too, often, it’s the “Improvs” that make these shows truly interesting, where the band goes completely off-script, and sometimes, the results are truly inspirational – stunning, loud, fast, amazing, slow, beautiful, peaceful – these improvs can be almost anything, and it’s fantastic that the band includes them in every show – they break up the sets beautifully, often providing a springboard in or out of one of the pieces in the set list.

Maybe the best anecdote that sums up the professionalism, the camaraderie, the teamwork, of King Crimson Mark 3, as Fripp calls this band – is the story of the “John Wetton Save”.  This occurs early on in the set, near the end of one of the versions of “The Night Watch”.  The piece is nearly done, Fripp is on his own, playing the short, repeating mellotron chordal section that leads up to the final violin melody, which then leads to the song’s end.

Fripp is playing away, the revolving mellotron part, when the band all seem to realise that there is no violin coming in (apparently, it had broken down completely) so what happens next is astonishing: Fripp decides to play the part a second time, so another few bars of music go by, when once again, the moment has come for when the violin solo should come in.

But what happens instead is, we hear John Wetton playing the violin melody as a bass solo, with feeling, playing it note perfect, slowly, deliberately, as if it were MEANT to be a bass solo (even though it’s NOT a part he is required to know – somehow, he knows it!) which then brought the band to the end of the piece perfectly – without missing a beat – and a successful conclusion, sans violin, to a beautiful piece of music. 

And – it’s a bonus, it’s the ONLY time you will hear Wetton playing that particular melody anywhere on record – it was a demand of the moment, an equipment failure causing an unscheduled bass solo emulating a missing violin solo…brilliant !!  It could only happen in King Crimson, and it’s to Wetton’s credit that he picked up that melody so quickly and perfectly – saving the day and rescuing our distressed violinist.

I could sit here and write about each disc of this set, exhaustively, pointing out certain gems and certain gaffes (not too many of those, actually) but I think it’s best if I just keep this concise and say, if you like King Crimson live, you could do a lot worse than to pick up this beautiful box set, which comes with all kinds of goodies, a huge booklet featuring the good Sid Smith; excerpts from Fripp’s diary, photographs, and various facsimile lyric sheets and so on – a really, really nice package, which also includes a treasure-trove of DVD and blu-ray material.

Another nice feature of this set is the fact that five of the shows were recorded professionally, multi-track, so that means those five shows can be presented in extra pristine sound quality versions.  You even get two different mixes of one of those shows – the Asbury Park show – one mix from Robert Fripp, Tony Arnold and David Singleton, the other, from Ronan Chris Murphy.

The presence of the high quality recordings near the end of the set nicely balances out some of the less high fidelity moments earlier on, so you actually end up with increasingly better sound quality as the set goes along (with the exception of the final Central Park concert, where we sadly, must return to a cassette source).

That’s a bonus you don’t get in most live series, professionally recorded shows – but this was intentional, and all of the material for the official live King Crimson record of the day, “USA”, is culled from those shows.  So really, this record might have been called “The Road To Red And USA” but I guess that doesn’t really have the same ring to it!

Disc 21 is the culmination of the “road” – a new 2013 mix of the studio album “Red” which followed this tour – mixed by the unstoppable Steven Wilson. So you get to hear the live shows that lead up to the recording of “Red”, so you can feel the energy that was in the band when they went to make that record.  It’s no wonder that the studio version of “Starless” is so incredible, being built on the back of these live performances – that is proof that the rehearse-on-the-road method really works when it needs to.

For a fan like me, ordering this was an absolute no-brainer, yes, I did have a few of these shows already, but this brings them all together in perfect chronological order, so it’s nice to have them all in one set.  Some of this material was released on the most excellent “Great Deceiver” set (but, only in part) and others were variously, DGM CDs or DGM downloads – but, to be fair, there is also a fair amount of previously unreleased material, which makes it an absolute “must have” for the voracious King Crimson fans – of which, I am admittedly one.

This set rocks, I’ve sat for the last two days, playing disc after disc, hearing the band get better and better at the tunes, and hearing the improvs develop – and I can tell you, the conclusion of “Starless” night after night, does not get ANY less beautiful or inspiring, it’s just incredibly beautiful, and Fripp’s final lead solo at the very end of the song, is soaring, searing and intensely, intensely beautiful – that one note just rings and rings…and then fades away as the mellotrons also fade.  it’s starless…and bible black.

I am surprised, I would have thought that after about ten discs, I would be getting tired of hearing “Lament” or “The Talking Drum” over and over and over again, but I absolutely do not, because interesting things happen – different things happen from night to night, show to show, venue to venue, and it’s fabulous hearing the band experimenting, trying out new ideas, as they tour across North America.

Then, finally, July 1, 1974, live in Central Park – the great Crimson beast of 1969-1974 was finally laid to rest – the last live show ever by this line-up, and the continuous series of various “King Crimson’s” finally brought to an end – and at that time, of course, we didn’t know that Crimson would indeed re-emerge, re-built from the ground up, in 1981 – but for us, suddenly in 1974 to find that Crimson was no more! – this final line-up was probably the best line-up, it’s arguable either way, many cite the 1969 line-up that only existed for 11 months as the “best”, or, this final quartet that worked for about 18 months (from 1973 through half of 1974) – I am not counting the 1972 – 1973 period when they were a quintet with Jamie Muir.

I think that this band had a better chance to really work out their repertoire, and they actually had material that stretched from Larks’ Tongues through “Starless and Bible Black” – two full albums (and, two of their most adventurous, complex, mature works from which to draw on) – plus, they played old worlde Crimson pieces such as “Cat Food”, “Peace – A Theme” or “21^st Century Schizoid Man” – and, also, odd unreleased tracks such as the illustrious “Doctor Diamond” which was never recorded in the studio (I think).

It was great fun, for example, hearing Wetton tackle the vocal to “Cat Food” – that is really something (not found on “The Road To Red”, but available on earlier live recordings) – and this band’s take on “Schizoid Man” is not to be taken lightly.  “Schizoid Man” isn’t played at every gig on “The Road To Red” but when it is – you notice 🙂

I am staggered, though, just listening to a randomly selected version of Fracture, first, at the complexity and maturity of Fripp’s biggest challenge to himself (of the time) – and second, at the world class, incredible fuzz bass and loud distorted bass and beautiful soft bass that John Wetton plays during “Fracture”.  Yes, what Bruford and Cross do in “Fracture” is very important, I am not downplaying that – but what Wetton does with this piece, you can hear him, hanging on for dear life, trying to follow Fripp on his cosmic guitar journey – and then that bass solo at the end – it’s fracking impossible – he rips it off like it’s nothing – and then right back into that climbing coda.

All four players have their moments, and all of them can solo like four houses on fire, but for me, this set gives you John Wetton, one of the most powerful bassists in rock music, in all his glory – loud, belligerent, confident, capable, subtle, and always, always present, always in the moment.

I don’t feel like I can really critique the guitar playing of Robert Fripp, occasionally, equipment gets the better of him, there’s one awkward silence where something goes wrong and he actually stops playing for a few seconds – but then, consummate professional, comes back in as if nothing had happened.  Some guitarists have criticised his tone, his endless distortion through wah pedals and so on – but I really put any such problems down to the equipment of the time – and really, with Fripp, you aren’t there to hear a bitchin’ tone, you are there to hear him play.  And play – he does.  With blinding speed, with innovative ideas, with surprising and strange note selections – always questing, always pushing the limits, and it’s a joy to hear him work his way through this amazing catalogue of music on the live stage – absolute genius at work.

Not meaning to ignore the good drummer – to me, this tour just shows what an incredibly good decision it was to quit Yes and join King Crimson – to me, Bruford was BORN to play drums with John Wetton – and there has never, ever to my mind, been a better pairing.  They just work perfectly together, and no need for more than that.  The perfect rhythm section, which made things much easier for Cross and Fripp, the two soloists – because they know they can depend on the Wetton-Bruford powerhouse – which can also transform into the most delicate, beautiful sounding accompanying bass and percussionist imaginable, and on some of the very pastoral, violin-led improvs, where Wetton and Bruford are both playing so carefully and gently – you can’t really believe it’s the same band that had just been belting out “21^st Century Schizoid Man” at full volume four minutes beforehand !

But there it is – a band capable of great dynamic range, from a whisper to a scream – and I love both of those bands – the quiet, gentle melodic King Crimson, and the hard rocking, jamming, improvising King Crimson.

You will find both aplenty on The Road To Red.

Available in fine music shops everywhere.