Community Theater Berkeley United States

What a fabulous start King Crimson’s seventh date in the support slot with Tool! Pat’s penchant for on-the-fly sampling and pressing his electronic allsorts button make this version of Dangerous Curves akin to an explosive hybrid of electronica and hard-edged rock. Extraneous non-specific noises swirl and snake around Adrian and Trey’s steady pulse whilst Pat’s clattering and Robert’s soaring strings ramp up the excitement levels.

“The next song we’re about to about to play for you is so brand new it hasn’t been recorded yet but it has been titled...Level Five” says Adrian ahead of what amounts to a crushing beast of a version. It’s the 19th time the piece had been played live since June 2001 and there are moments when it sounds not quite fully tamed, threatening to slip off the leash.

Threading his way through the titanic machinations of LTIA IV Belew pulls off a typically angular solo that nevertheless manages to delve into more reflective areas of his musical personality within the confines of Crim.

It’s a sprightly sprint out of the traps for Frame By Frame and you get a sense that Robert is quite literally hanging on by his fingertips on those where he’s doubling notes. Add this to the fact that there’s some gorgeously supple bass-end work from Gunn, and you’ve got quite a version of an old KC classic to sit up and take notice of.