KING CRIMSON | LIVE REVIEW
St David’s Hall, Cardiff, Thurs 3 Sept
The quest for perfection requires surroundings and an audience to match, and presumably this explains both the location and the atmosphere of progressive rock icons King Crimson’s first appearance in Wales since 1972. St David’s Hall, intended as a venue for orchestras and operas more than rock bands, is a strange arena in which to absorb powerful, quasi-metallic riffs, but its sonic spotlessness befits the band’s approach: the seven members play with a fine-tuned stoicism, more akin to a classical ensemble than what we normally call ‘rock’n’roll’.
Meaning that everyone stays seated, and no ducking out during songs under pain of security glare; phones stay pocketed, even if you’re an ‘umble reviewer typing notes; and neither Crimson bandleader Robert Fripp or any of his six current colleagues say one word to the audience during the two-hour set. You probably wouldn’t want all rock shows to be like this, but if it’s what the band want, they keep up their side of the bargain and then some. The performance is frankly masterful, on several individual levels and – especially – as a band.
The band in question is merely the latest edition of King Crimson, which since its late 1960s inception has had multiple lineup changes, with Fripp being the only constant. Now in his late 60s himself, he’s an unobtrusive presence at the side of the stage, twiddling electronic gizmos of his own devising while Jakko Jakszyk performs lead vocals (the only area in which KC are merely competent) and much visual focus is on the three drummers at the front. As has always been the case with each phase of Crimson, songs are re-routed to suit the current performers. So the opening piece, if you will, is two early-70s numbers – Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part 1 and Pictures Of A City – segued together over the best part of 20 minutes. I couldn’t tell you where the join was, honestly, but the movement from baroque folk to symphonic rock to hard rock to jazz is a fair summary of King Crimson’s mannerisms.
Except, of course, their scope extends wider still. Selections from highly-regarded 1974 LP Red range from One More Red Nightmare, refined in its 2015 incarnation but still sounding like a prototype for a certain strain of complex, abrasive underground rock, to Starless, which is about as close as they come to a power ballad. Epitaph – performed, one learns, for the first time since 1969 – is lachrymose and borders on the corny, but remains compelling via multiple, form-shifting drums. (The three drummers are a huge part of the current Crimson setup: often given their own percussion-only spotlight, which reminded me of Boredoms more than anything, Gavin Harrison also gets his own, amusingly flashy solo turn.) There are a few brand new songs, too, one of which goes by the title Radical Action (To Unseat The Hold Of Monkey Mind) – Mel Collins’ saxophone features prominently, and are more sonically restrained than the industrial crunching that typified KC’s most recent, early-00s material.
After a 10-minute break – something you’d hardly begrudge to seven men who are variously middle-aged or pensionable – King Crimson finish with two of their best-known tracks, the fantastical pomp of The Court Of The Crimson King and still-extraordinary proto-metal gamechanger 21st Century Schizoid Man. Indeed, most of the Cardiff setlist consisted of favourites from the band’s earlier years, but in no way does this feel ‘safe’. Afforded an inevitable standing ovation by a hall of fans who in most cases are probably seeing this reclusive band for the first time, phones are whipped out and, not for the first time this evening, things get flashy, as well they might.
words NOEL GARDNER photo GARETH GRIFFITHS