Setlist
Soundscapes (20 mins)
The Power to Believe (Acapella)
Level 5
ProzaKc Blues
The ConstruKction of Light
One Time
Facts of Life
The Power to Believe II
Dinosaur
Happy With What You Have to Be Happy With
Dangerous Curves
Larks’ Tongues in Aspic IV
Encores
Deception of the Thrush
Frame by Frame
Red
(Though this list may be incomplete or in the wrong order)
This is, of course, going to be a completely biased review of King Crimson. There’s no getting around that particular fact, so read this more of a memory painting of the event rather than a hard and fast review.
We arrived at the venue 20 minutes before the scheduled event and quickly took to our seats. The Palais de Congres is a very nice concert hall, quite similar in size to the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, but with the stylistic features of the Barbican. Architecture aside, I was impressed by the comfortable seating and the fact that I was in the third row, smack beneath Adrian and Robert. I couldn’t have asked for better tickets.
Before the show began a small group of English voices could be heard from behind and they were promptly shown to the seats around me and the Missus. We winked to each other and remained silent, taking incredibly joy in pretending to be French and listening as the young fellow said “Bonsoir” and “Pardon” and “Merci” to their British colleagues. Oh the fun! So we travelled all that way only to find that England had followed us in the shape of these five individuals. A little corner of this green and pleasant land was encamped within the venue. I didn’t hear/see/recognise any other English voices (or American voices for that matter) so it was amusing that they were so close to us.
RF took to the stage just after 8.30pm (after announcement for no smoking, no recording and no photography in French) and began performing his gentle soundscapes. These were much more conducive than the ones he performed the last time I saw him in London, where they were horrific and brutal. These were gentle studies in sound – and at one point RF began to quietly solo over the ‘scape. All the time, the guitarist-in-chief kept snucking a sneaky peek at the audience. Was he using his innate psychic ability (yeah right!) or checking to see if the auditorium was filling up? Only he would know.
With the strains of The Power To Believe soundscape repeating, he left the stage to rapturous applause. I forgot to add that during this performance a number of earnest young fellows were knelt at the front of the stage, gazing longingly and full of admiration for the guitarist. I found this to be a little creepy – but I guess that’s what these continental types are like! When the band returned five minutes later to perform, the two burly security men ushered these stray fans back to their seats and Adrian Belew blew the dust from his vocoder to speak the opening lines from The Power to Believe (Acapella).
I tightened my grip on the missus’ hand, pre-empting the fact that we were going to get hit pretty hard, and she responded. BAMMO – the opening chords of Level 5 thundered through the place, hitting me square in the chest and leaving me breathless. I couldn’t breathe, the music had captured me and it was all I could do but to rhythmically twitch and shake to the music. The sound was clear and crisp and the best that I had ever heard for King Crimson. Every nuance and weird percussion sample whizzed over our heads. Truly astounding stuff.
The ConstruKction of Light was particularly tight and sounded much better than any other live performance I had heard. One Time benefited from having an extended RF soundscape collage during the middle section, which transformed the song completely – a real inspirational move boys. The Facts of Life had a new opening section, which mirrored the ending, that almost had me scratching my head and thinking “What is this?” but then I recognised the riff. There was also a blistering solo from RF – well there would be, wouldn’t there.
The Power to Believe II (my favourite track from the album) was just transcendental. As I watched the piece unfold, I could see where all the noises where coming from, who played what bit and it was a real education. Brilliance.
Dinosaur rocked out and I was surprised to hear that the band have reinstated the Tony Levin upright bass part again (which was abridged on the KC2000 tour) and the song got a surprisingly loud response from the audience.
Dangerous Curves took me exactly where I wanted to go, building from silence and then exploding into deafening noise. At the end, I couldn’t help myself. I let out a orgasmic scream as the song reached its post-coital throws. Then the band shocked the audience by launching straight into Larks’ IV. There was a audible gasp then a short round of applause to propel the band forward. Blistering…absolutely blistering.
The band left the stage to a stand ovation and much cheering. P3 returned for another sublime rendition of The Deception of the Thrush, which just transported me to another place. RF applauded TG’s mournful solo – it was a well earnt applause too.
Then AB returned and the band launched into Frame By Frame – the performance was a little flaky – but the audience response was wild. At the end of this song, a crowd rushed forward towards the stage – and everyone was on their feet…everyone except me because I was waiting for Red to start up. One of the Englishmen behind me gently asked me to stand by screaming loudly in my right ear “Stand up, you motherfucker”. Good job I was pretending to be French.
I stood up and joined the throng as the band went into Red. The testosterone levels went through the roof and I lost contact with the music. I just wanted to get away from all these very aggressive young men, full of dope and booze. With the show over, AB looked visually shaken by the writhing mass of fans squeezed in the gap between the stage and the front row seats. He threw all his picks into audience – one landed by the Missus but she was too intimidated by the grabbing hands of young men to bend down and reach for it. She complained later about her own indecision – but what’s done is done, no point going over it, right? Anyway, TG followed suit by throwing one of PM’s drum heads into the audience and the PM himself threw one, that went over our heads, just missing hitting someone behind me in the face. Of course, RF had long made his escape - there was to be no applause to the audience this time around - he just scurried off into the darkness. With the remaining three members looking on in amazement at this reception, the crowd was getting wild and we made our escape – there was no more music, the houselights had come up.
Outside we reflected on the evening. Here are some of the quotes:
“Fucking Ace” – the missus
“Probably the best gig I’ve ever seen…ever…in the history of gigs…ever” - me
“That’s was the best” – the missus
“I feel so pumped up, I just want to kick someone now” – me
And so on and so forth…
We decided that this was probably the best gig we’ve ever seen. It was powerful, dynamic, it sounded good and the band looked as if they were really enjoying themselves (there was lots of interplay between AB and the rest). There were no complaints here.
Despite the travelling and the money, KC had vindicated themselves. Before the concert, I felt like I was having a crisis of faith, but these guys but me back on the road and I now know that if I could I would follow them to the ends of the earth for a show like that night.
And then we walked in the balmy, humid night air, up to the Arc de Triomphe, illuminated in its splendour, down Avenue de Hoche, past the Parc Monceau and back to our hotel.
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