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Saturday, 29 March 2003
King Crimson @ Warfield, SF ::
I saw King Crimson at the Warfield in San Francisco Friday night. Robert Fripp came out and did a long guitar-synthesizer-laden loop solo while the house lights were still up. I’m a synthesist and loopist myself, so I was quick to be reminded of what frustrates me about this modus operendi; while the loop was pretty interesting as he built it up, one phrase at a time, it eventually became overly static, overpowering whatever he was doing on top of it.
Then the rest of the band came out, the lights went down, and the band launched into a quirky, polyrhythmic, sometimes abrasive, sometimes spooky set. While the musicianship was impeccable, I found myself missing an element of heart. Was it that I only recognized the three (?) songs they played from their 1995 release Thrak, which I own? Did that explain why “One Time” (from Thrak) was a high point, or was it because it was the perhaps the most beautifully melodic and heartfelt song they played, with Adrian Belew’s voice naked and vulnerable instead of competing with a wall of guitar textures and thunderous bass? Then again, the two encores, further highlights, Dinosaur ("I’m a dinosaur / Somebody is digging my bones”) and Vrooom are both from Thrak.
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