The King Crimson show was both absolutely amazing nearing the point of sheer orgasmic glory while also weighted down with periods of annoying boredom. They performed music from across the legacy of King Crimson, including some of their more, uh, lyrical and smug overly pretentious pieces from the 60s and early 70s. The sax player, in general, never strayed from traditional academic jazz solos, which was a shame give that all the other musicians were truly pushing the boundaries of how their instruments could be used to make music. Also, for the majority of the music there was simply no point in having three drummers on the stage and much of the time even two drummers was pointless. Of course, recreating a song from the era of drumming minimalism when Bill Bruford was creating his reimagined applications of drums was hard to expand to three drummers. Sometimes the middle drummer would play the piano to have something to do, but swapping the main drum part between two very good, but essentially different feeling drummers was more of a distraction than a musically genius move. If the goal was to run master class for drum students on different interpretations of the same song, then they succeeded, and I hope a ton of young drummers were there to see it. But if you just wanted to get lost in the music, it was confusing and often more like a circus act.
Of course, all the of the musicians were stunningly talented and very impressive to watch play. I had forgotten how tiny Tony Levin was - he always appears to be a giant in the concert videos he's in - an image which may be encouraged by the dominance of his bass sound. Robert Fripp was his usually British aristocratic gentleman self. I imagine him talking about the serfs on his land needing a new doctor then excusing himself to go play the most incredibly impossible guitar solo ever imagined only to return to the conversation with a calm, "so, where were we?"
The singer / 2nd guitar player was solid in his own right, and when he sang he sounded almost identical to Greg Lake from the original King Crimson lineup. He couldn't pull off the natural frenetic energy of Adrien Belew, so he re-invented those vocals with crafty guitar leads tracking the melodies he was singing, which was very impressive and avoided the issue of attempting to be Belew.
The drummers were all amazing, in spite of my complete dismissal of the middle drummer for setting up his rack toms in reverse order and still playing them as if they were in the standard order - a trend younger drummers are doing these days to appear innovative, but really they are just silly. The right drummer was precise and intense with a technical skill that was astonishing. The left drummer was emotionally perfect, spewing a soulful emotion in his frantic playing which diminished the difficulty of the parts he laid down.
When they played the music well suited for such a huge configuration of musicians, the experience was unlike anything I have ever had - having an impact on me more similar to the end of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, or Copelands Fanfare for the Common Man, rather than the tearful impact of Brian Wilson's Smile or The Who's Quadrophenia. In other words, the great moments were more like hearing a great classical performance more than a great rock concert. But King Crimson has always hit me that way. I would hope that in 100 year's time the great artists will be performing these genius pieces in the concert halls.
So, there you go, that's my review.
On a side note, the young man next to me was a little over-engaged with the bobbing of his head to the obvious downbeats in the music. On the pieces which jumped from time signature to time signature, or even worse on the parts where all the players were in different meters doing true polyrhythm, I truly thought his head would roll off his shoulders as he desperately tried to find the downbeat. At one point I wanted to lean over and warn him of potential permanent damage if he kept it up.
