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King Crimson
Aug. 7th, 2008 07:00 pmWe saw King Crimson at the Park West in Chicago tonight. The Park West looks like a smallish former ballroom, that was recently updated to a theater. It's got mostly tables/chairs/booths on the main floor, and balconies with many stools. It's got four or five bars, and waitresses working the floor. We sat in a balcony, on the left side. It was high enough to see what the drummers were doing, but not high enough to see Fripp over his lunar module (electronics console).
Okay, first - two drummers. Early in the show, I was fascinated, watching how the two of them played together. I was also interested to see how having two drummers would change older songs, and they seemed to have done quite a bit of rework on them. And man, those drums did thunder. Tony played the Chapman Stick for most of the night, only playing his bass guitar for three songs, and then only with his funk fingers. He was really getting into it, dancing around, and grooving with the music. He's the fluid heart of the band. And it's amazing how he plays that stick. Adrian was Adrian, but maybe less animated than usual. Fripp was Fripper than usual, hiding behind his rig, and stepping almost offstage to applaud towards the rest of the band, at the end of sets. We could see most of him from where we sat, but not his guitar or hands. Disappointing, but when I could discern what Adrian was playing, I could deduce what Fripp was playing. Usually. Sometimes there seemed to be three guitars. Fripp probably had a loop going. At those times, I had to doublecheck that Tony wasn't playing that part, but he wasn't.
They opened both the concert and one of the encores with drum duets. Seems like they did three encores, with two or three songs each. Here's a set list from a show earlier in the week:
1) Drummers duet, un-named
2) ConstruKtion of Light, parts 1 and 2
3) Level Five
4) Neurotica
5) Three of a Perfect Pair
6) Indiscipline
7) Frame By Frame
8) Dinosaur
9) One Time
10) Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream
11) B'boom
12) Elephant Talk
13) Red
14) Drum duet
15) Thela Hun Ginjeet
16) The Talking Drum
17) Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part 2
Encore:
18) Sleepless
19) Vroom
20) Coda: Marine 475
Aside from the instrumentals, which I don't know the titles, I recognize most of the songs from this list. I know some of these are out of order from tonight's show.
The sound was excellent. Sometimes the drums seemed loud, and sometimes the bass was hard to pick out, but overall it's hard to complain. And there was a center rear channel. sometimes Fripp's guitar was very distinctly coming from the back of the room. We saw Biff running around on stage a few times. He's currently a tech for the band, but he's a Madison musician, whom we've seen play a few times. By coincidence, Cyn was wearing the t-shirt of one of his bands - Reptile Palace Orchestra. I told her he should try to get his autograph.
Pat Mastelloto's toys deserve special mention. Apparently, he travels with a trunk full of little percussive things, and he likes to see how many of them he can use during a show. About every other song, he held up some new sort of thing to crash, like a wind chime, or one of those big things you twirl around like a party favor, or a bunch of cymbal looking things on a string, or a long metal or plastic sheet that he shook in front of a mic. The problem was that you could seldom hear these gadgets. He really did like making sounds that were new and different. For the early part of one piece, he had drum sticks that had little tambourine-like cymbals attached to them, that he hit his toms with, and afterwards, I saw that he had towels over the drums. He also had a couple of electronic drum thingies. One was the kind of synthesizer that he played with his fingers, and another was a big square unit, with different pads, that he hit with his sticks.
Fripp's notes from his online journal:
The performance: the Beast Is Back! During the first long climbing section in Larks II, I felt the presence of King Crimson entering into the music, and almost wept.
Overall, a strong performance to a generous audience.
Okay, first - two drummers. Early in the show, I was fascinated, watching how the two of them played together. I was also interested to see how having two drummers would change older songs, and they seemed to have done quite a bit of rework on them. And man, those drums did thunder. Tony played the Chapman Stick for most of the night, only playing his bass guitar for three songs, and then only with his funk fingers. He was really getting into it, dancing around, and grooving with the music. He's the fluid heart of the band. And it's amazing how he plays that stick. Adrian was Adrian, but maybe less animated than usual. Fripp was Fripper than usual, hiding behind his rig, and stepping almost offstage to applaud towards the rest of the band, at the end of sets. We could see most of him from where we sat, but not his guitar or hands. Disappointing, but when I could discern what Adrian was playing, I could deduce what Fripp was playing. Usually. Sometimes there seemed to be three guitars. Fripp probably had a loop going. At those times, I had to doublecheck that Tony wasn't playing that part, but he wasn't.
They opened both the concert and one of the encores with drum duets. Seems like they did three encores, with two or three songs each. Here's a set list from a show earlier in the week:
1) Drummers duet, un-named
2) ConstruKtion of Light, parts 1 and 2
3) Level Five
4) Neurotica
5) Three of a Perfect Pair
6) Indiscipline
7) Frame By Frame
8) Dinosaur
9) One Time
10) Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream
11) B'boom
12) Elephant Talk
13) Red
14) Drum duet
15) Thela Hun Ginjeet
16) The Talking Drum
17) Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part 2
Encore:
18) Sleepless
19) Vroom
20) Coda: Marine 475
Aside from the instrumentals, which I don't know the titles, I recognize most of the songs from this list. I know some of these are out of order from tonight's show.
The sound was excellent. Sometimes the drums seemed loud, and sometimes the bass was hard to pick out, but overall it's hard to complain. And there was a center rear channel. sometimes Fripp's guitar was very distinctly coming from the back of the room. We saw Biff running around on stage a few times. He's currently a tech for the band, but he's a Madison musician, whom we've seen play a few times. By coincidence, Cyn was wearing the t-shirt of one of his bands - Reptile Palace Orchestra. I told her he should try to get his autograph.
Pat Mastelloto's toys deserve special mention. Apparently, he travels with a trunk full of little percussive things, and he likes to see how many of them he can use during a show. About every other song, he held up some new sort of thing to crash, like a wind chime, or one of those big things you twirl around like a party favor, or a bunch of cymbal looking things on a string, or a long metal or plastic sheet that he shook in front of a mic. The problem was that you could seldom hear these gadgets. He really did like making sounds that were new and different. For the early part of one piece, he had drum sticks that had little tambourine-like cymbals attached to them, that he hit his toms with, and afterwards, I saw that he had towels over the drums. He also had a couple of electronic drum thingies. One was the kind of synthesizer that he played with his fingers, and another was a big square unit, with different pads, that he hit with his sticks.
Fripp's notes from his online journal:
The performance: the Beast Is Back! During the first long climbing section in Larks II, I felt the presence of King Crimson entering into the music, and almost wept.
Overall, a strong performance to a generous audience.