King Crimson at Bunkamura Orchard Hall, November 28th 2018

Growing up, the genre that held the key to my music appreciation adulthood was prog. I remember listening to Genesis’ The Music Box and being in awe with what a song could be capable of. One album in particular opened the floodgates. Just looking at that gatefold spread on vinyl was exhilarating. A terrified man screaming as he literally sees his mind expanding, an obvious and yet accurate metaphor of what that record meant.

With only five songs and the perfect flow that connected the relentless brutal pace of the opening song with the pastoral calmness of the second one. Closing the first side with a mellotron driven anthemic tune and opening the second one with a ballad that turned into sort of a full musique concrete improvisation ditty. Then closing with the title song in full epic mode. That record was a trip and after that I got Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, the early eighties trilogy, watched the live videos, they pretty much became my favorite band.

Then the nineties came up and everything prog related became frowned upon. Other artists and other genres replaced them and they remained on the back burner. And yet they continued to be the standard to which the rest will measure up. As in “Yeah, it is good. But, is it King-Crimson-good?”

I never thought that I would see them in concert. After they announced their reunion in 2014 I  caught them in Paris at L’Olympia in 2015, one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Three years later I was ready for another fix, expectations were high.

The Bunkamura Orchard Hall is located in an art complex that includes an arthouse cinema, a museum and a theater. It’s an amazing venue with top notch acoustics. As expected, as soon as I went through the door and handed my ticket to an usher, a security person jumped in front of me to ask me if I had a camera. It seems like each of these chronics includes a similar anecdote, I can’t let this uptightness not not bother me. Anyway, after a resounding “no!” from my part we headed to our seats. The soundscape playing through the speakers had this metal shrilling sound that was actually quite soothing, the perfect preface to things to come. 

After the upbeat Fripp recording that reminded the audience about the no photography allowed policy, the 8-piece band walked on stage at seven o’clock sharp. They opened with Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part One with the Japanese anthem bit in the middle of Mel Collins’ flute solo, just as in the Radical Action live album. They then played Peace as a brief interlude after delving into the Red album to play One More Red Nightmare and the title track. 

I’ve been avoiding setlist spoilers for a couple of years now, so I was surprised to find out that they included Cadence and Cascade into their repertoire. Its etherealness served as the perfect palette cleanser after the intense classic tunes from Red. More classics came in the shape of The Letters and Sailor’s Tale from the Islands album, before they hit us with another pleasant surprise.  

Moonchild is a song they didn’t play three years ago, I was surprised to hear it, even though I sort of expected it to be included. Whenever I hear that song I think of drums being played while covered in bedsheets. That sort of muffled sound of small cymbals crashing and random notes played, it’s to me an image of the sixties avant-garde from the Fluxus side of things. The song was somewhat updated but still conveyed that energy, with bass and piano solos that reflected that free jazz spirit, to a certain degree.

Side B of In the Court of the Crimson King was played in its entirety. The title track of that album followed Moonchild just like on the record, I was psyched about that. As expected it was an amazing rendition with that pause between the false ending and the coda lasting forever, as it should. I was more than ready for the intermission after that, but they went on and completed the ninety minutes first set with Meltdown and Level 5.

After the twenty minutes intermission and some of the longest bathrooms queues I’ve ever seen, the second half opened with Discipline, a song from the Belew era also absent from the setlist three years ago. The band was able to adapt that signature syncopated intertwined Adrian Belew guitar sound and made it familiar yet completely different. Those eighties songs sounded rejuvenated. Same with Indiscipline, later on the set. The half spoken-half sang vocal lines were delivered with new melodies that perfectly fitted the song. Jakko Jakszyk, the current lead vocalist, made the song his own and maybe even improved upon it.

Another notable difference from the show I saw three years ago was the marked presence of keyboards in most of the songs. Bill Rieflin and Jeremy Stacey provided those atmospheric touches that added layers to the music. There was also more of a jazz feel to the music. The three drummers front line of Stacey, Pat Mastelotto and Gavin Harrison were a solid unit that at times even swang, as they did in some of the passages from Easy Money, another song that has evolved a lot from how it sounded three years ago. It was also a visual experience to witness that wave flowing from Harrison to Mastelotto and back, truly a sight to behold. 

In the back, Mel Collins, Tony Levin and, of course, Robert Fripp  also contributed to that loose and jazzy feel that culminated with the set closer Starless. With Fripp conducting and soloing from the sidelines and Levin at the bottom end, Collins’ saxophone replicated that distinctive vocal melody as the lighting set up changed for the first time in the whole evening bathing the stage with a red hue. That switch at the end reminded me of Ravel’s Bolero key change towards the end of the piece. When something that appears to be static and mechanic reveals its true emotional load, in the same way that some Kiarostami’s or Scorsese’s movies reveal crucial information in their last frame, leaving the audience gasping for air. With Starless as a soundtrack, that visual cue, that set ending, was a truly emotional experience.

And that was not it. After a standing ovation the band returned for an encore to play, basically, the best song ever written in the rock idiom. 21st Century Schizoid Man is a timeless song ahead of its time and very much of its time, all at the same time. The driving guitar riff, the distorted vocals and lyrics reflecting on the instability of the late sixties. The almost jazz big band sound of the instrumental section along with the proto-blast beats on drums. It’s just a song that has it all, the energy of it is out of this world. This version included a lengthy Harrison drum solo and a chant and respond section from the audience in my favorite part, when all the instruments play a line in unison with a series of pauses in between. It all ended in a cacophony that cut abruptly, in what was the true definition of a jaw dropping moment.

We were allowed to take pictures and the show rounded the three hour mark -counting the 20 minutes intermission. Everyone left with big smiles on their faces and looking forward to what’s next in the King Crimson camp. 

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