King Crimson
Roma alla Corte del Re Cremisi

KING CRIMSON
THE EIGHTH REINCARNATION
(Auditorium Conciliazione, Nov 11, 2016, Rome)

Listening to KING CRIMSON live carries with it the romantic sense of the sublime. Projected into a maelstrom of endless sensations, the spectator is engulfed by a very demanding intellectual and emotional experience, the same sensation I felt in front of Turner's paintings.
When the Master Fripp is involved, analyses are never easy, especially since it's important to beware of the literal message. It's necessary to dig in, to bring to light what the imperturbable Anglo-Saxon likes to hide. The operation doesn't seem dissimilar to other musical icons, busy putting on massive Greatest Hits tours. In chronological order, Robert Smith's CURE comes to mind. Nostalgic operations of undeniable charm, but which add nothing to the artist's history. Yet, with KC, what seems to be "isn't," and what "is" seems not. The music of KC has always been a matter of self-awareness, affecting the mind even before the heart.
That's why not everyone appreciates the Crimson repertoire, whose cerebral writing irritates those not used to delving into the depths of their own self.

Those who have seen more than one concert know that after "21st Century Schizoid Man," a song always placed at the end of the gig, Robert Fripp indulges in a very common practice in every corner of the globe: the selfie. This gesture is always doubled by Tony Levin's concurrent photo of his selfie. Now, disregarding the byways of Gurdjieff's thought, and aside from my conviction of facing a charlatan who at times produced brilliant insights, the Armenian shaman, through the writings of Ouspensky and disciples like Bennett, has indeed inspired more than one artist (in Italy, for example, Battiato often cited him as a source of inspiration, as did Cacciapaglia, author of the suite "L'Albero della Vita"), and this gesture cannot help but remind the attentive observer of the title of the box set which, in fact, is the framework of this tour: Radical Action To Unseat The Hold Of Monkey Mind (Radical Action to Annihilate the Monkey Mind). For Gurdjieff's philosophy, the monkey mind represents mechanical thought.

And what is the selfie if not the representation of associative and automatic thought? I suspect that this repeated gesture, almost ritualistic in Mister Fripp's stance at the concert's conclusion, is a message directed at monkey minds.
Is he mocking us? Not exactly, but that gesture is already a social analysis. After all, in the included booklet, Fripp literally declares: "What I like about this band is that what it is actually doing is not what it appears to be doing." Hence, he is not really taking a selfie, not really conducting a nostalgic operation. Each night, he shifts the pieces of the puzzle, inserts Fracture in place of ConstruKction of Light or Sailor’s Tale, but always allows Starless to conclude the two sets and 21st Century Schizoid Man to definitively close the event. The entire pattern is then sewn together by a series of new compositions from the eighth incarnation of the Crimson King. From Hell Hounds of a Krim to Devil Dogs of Tessellation Row.

And here we come to the three drums, absolute protagonists even from a scenic point of view. Never have we seen three rhythmic ships (such they are, occupying the entire length of the stage) unfolded in front of the audience. There is only one other precedent, however never having left the recording studio except in segments and never with the full formation: Septober Energy by Centipede.
On drums were John Marshall (playing the role currently held by Pat Mastelotto in the current King Crimson), Tony Fennell, and Robert Wyatt. And who was on the production of that visionary album, featuring the cream of the Canterbury scene, a compendium of a sound passing from King Crimson through Soft Machine to Free-Form Jazz? Robert Fripp, who else? The circle closes. But if in 1971 the triple did not dominate except in some sections of the third and fourth parts, in the current Crimson operation, the drums have indeed a central role, at some moments in total dominance.
In the second row, in an elevated position, four elegant gentlemen, one in British-style suspenders and three in waistcoats, conclude this true armed phalanx, formed by six aliens led by Baal-Fripp-Zebul, who, having crossed the bastions of Orion and the gates of Tannhäuser, have arrived on Earth to deliver their message. Because KC are to Rock what Miles Davis was to Jazz, a band imagining the future. Only aliens can fit notes into elaborate interweavings that a moment later coalesce into a granite sound wall that would frizz the hair of the most extreme metal bands. To understand the magic that the seven Crimson hussars compose on stage, just think of the flocks of birds that in spring skies continuously draw ever-changing forms without losing compactness. This is exactly the magic that the fortunate spectators of a band unlike any other witnessed. In this new rebirth, Fripp recalls an old companion, Mel Collins, present from In the Wake of Poseidon to Islands, and soprano sax in Starless, whose winds suggest, among other things, the successful attempt to take the place of Belew's guitar (The ConstruKction of Light, Level Five).

If anyone thinks the eighth Crimson incarnation is some sort of Barnum circus, they haven't quite understood who Robert Fripp is, the solitary boy who moved from Wimborne to London at 93 Brondesbury Road with a very specific purpose: to organize anarchy, to give chaos discipline.

The first set is opened and closed by Larks' Tongues In Aspic (parts one and two), an ideal carpet for the sonic rides of the three drummers (Mastelotto, Stacey, Harrison). In between are selections from the second album, In The Wake Of Poseidon (Pictures of a City, Peace), from Lizard (Cirkus), Islands (The Letters, Sailor’s Tale), In The Court Of The Crimson King (Epitaph), again Larks' Tongues In Aspic (Easy Money, The Talking Drum), and finally, THRAK (Vrooom). A first part alternating metal razors and granite rock with brief moments of pure melancholy, clarifying how Fripp made a very happy choice with Jakko Jakszyk, who, while not being the Lake or Wetton of the golden age, delivers an outstanding performance, succeeding in the Herculean task of not making them missed. The twenty-minute break is absolutely welcome by the audience, besieged for over an hour by an impressive war machine.

The second set starts softly, with another song from Lizard, a fragment of The Battle of Glass Tears, ideal for the "broken hearts" present in the hall. Bucolic taste swept away by Indiscipline, the only track taken from the '80s repertoire, and not coincidentally, because it has the same genetic makeup as RED. The furious rhythmic explosions then give way to the Court Of The Crimson King, greeted with occasional inhuman screams (one might say schizoid). Red, the first of two tracks from the eponymous album, is indeed overshadowed by an over-the-top protagonism of the three drums that almost obscure Mel Collins's great work on the winds and Levin's bass lines (but it could also be the unbalanced sound of the Auditorium). Not so with the subsequent The Construkction of Light, a gem from the Belew period, retaining its charm with a monstrous job by Collins in the parts previously occupied by Adrian's guitar. A Scarcity of Miracles enters like a ray of sunshine amid the storm, calming the Auditorium with its mellow progress, its dreamy atmosphere which perhaps even the musicians need at this point in the somewhat anxious performance. The unpublished Radical Action II and Level Five bring the tension back to a defensive level, with a power of sound that crashes onto the audience like a tsunami.

It is the perfect moment for catharsis, and then for STARLESS, one of the most poignant and daring artistic expressions of the '70s, and I venture, a key element of this tour, with that second part that covers the stage in crimson red, the only light change of the entire evening. It is a moment of pure asceticism, with the auditorium transforming into a sanctuary of spirituality. Red is a posthumous album, in the sense it was recorded when Fripp had already decided to end the Crimson King's life. We are in 1974. The last concert of that incarnation happened on July 1st in New York, and the memorable moments of that performance were precisely the Schizoid Man and Starless, which ended the gig at sunset with red lights making the atmosphere even more dramatic. The Red King Crimson had become very different from the classic English progressive band, with a power given by the Bruford-Wetton rhythmic section unknown to contemporary bands and a tendency towards experimentation and improvisation, with various moments where they wandered into informal territory. As Wetton declared later, live, those KC had a lot to do with metal ("layers of metal flung at the audience"). Red is no accidental title: it relates to the soundboard levels' saturation reached during recording sessions. And here comes full circle: Fripp returns to RED's ground, to the place of his most challenging decision when unable to manage the extreme power and freedom of that sound, he gave in, closing that Crimson season, the most fruitful as far as I'm concerned (Larks' Tongues In Aspic - Starless And Bible Black - Red).

Light again in the hall and a thunderous standing ovation accompanies the band's exit. A few minutes and the Crimson King returns to the throne for the grand finale: 21st Century Schizoid Man. Spasms, distorted guitars, Jakko's cutting voice, and Gavin Harrison's acrobatic performance, with the other five stunned in front of his devastating solo.
Even His Majesty lets slip a hint of barely concealed satisfaction. The track closes in a final derailment, with the train in full run crashing onto the bewildered faces of the spectators. All stand for one last, endless applause.

A stone's throw from Saint Peter's, the disciplined anarchy of the Crimson King took the stage.