Robert Fripp And The Orchestra Of Crafty Guitarists
Live @ Convento La Pace, Sassoferrato (AN) 26.03.10

THE REVIEW

The owner of the only record shop in my town, Fabriano (province of Ancona), while chatting about this and that, tells me: "Are you going to see Robert Fripp in Sassoferrato tomorrow night?"

"What?!?!?!?!" I exclaim, astonished. Perhaps it's worth briefly explaining the reason for my disbelief: there's no need to elaborate on who Robert Fripp is, nor would I be the most suitable person to do so, given my limited knowledge of his work. However, I must stress that Fabriano is a town of about 30,000 souls, generally little interested in art or anything other than work/home work/home work/home church/home work/home. Sassoferrato is a neighboring municipality to Fabriano with about 8,000 inhabitants or so.

Fripp in Sassoferrato is like saying, I don't know, the Rolling Stones in Assisi.

Thus, I find the incredulity towards what the shopkeeper told me quite natural: "Yes, tomorrow Fripp is playing at La Pace [a convent that overlooks the town of Sassoferrato from a hill], for free moreover".

"Don't mess with me!" I retort.

"I swear! Look." And he shows me the news on the online page of a local newspaper. 

It's more than obvious that the next evening I was in line with two friends to enter that jewel, the small church of the convent. "Do you think 100 guitarists can fit in the church? It's very small." My friend's father who accompanied us asks.

"I don't know, maybe there will be more musicians than us in the audience!" I reply.

In fact, there were about a hundred of us spectators as well, witnessing, without exaggeration, a magic. The Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists made their entrance and started a suite impossible to define. "Inconceivable" might be the most suitable term. A hundred people playing (is that the right word?), passing notes to each other as if they were playing catch. Playing... Yes, they play with music. They move, it's choreography, it's vibration, pure vibration. A hundred acoustic guitars dancing, playing the inconceivable and conceiving the unplayable... And then they play it.

Then some of them leave the church, only a few remain (a dozen or so). They perform renditions of King Crimson classics, like "Red" or the finale "21st Century Schizoid Man". I didn't know what to expect from this concert, but I certainly didn't expect them to play King Crimson! I thought it would be something else, different music. And it is, indeed, but for geniuses like Fripp, nothing is disconnected, isolated from everything. Everything is united, everything is noise everything is music, everything is direction, everything is movement.

I know I was lucky to hear such a seminal artist play in my backyard (one could well say!), especially since Fripp announced he would end the Guitar Craft experience in 2010. A shame, because concerts that leave you with something as significant as this one did are rare. I don't know what it is, but I know this concert changed me a bit, I'm richer now, because it was, above all, a true life experience.

You don't often hear of such magic.