The opening night of King Crimson’s first North American tour of 2003 finds the team in North Carolina at a sold-out performance in Asheville’s Orange Peel venue. Opening with the title track of 2000’s The ConstruKction Of Light and a stomping ProzaKc Blues, the band sound warmed-up and ready to go. There’s something of a gear shift as Adrian says “Thank you verra much,” as Hooter J Johnson and then, without missing a beat, goes into the near-angelic, vocoder-enhanced A cappella The Power To Believe I.
There’s a couple of Fripp-centric glitches making merry with Level Five that leaves Trey Gunn carrying the quick running lines between the cymbal-chokes and a similarly isolated Belew on the run-down to his big guitar solo. However, the number’s momentum sweeps such minor considerations aside. At the end, Belew asks “How’s it going so far? “We have a lot of brand new material from our forthcoming album called The Power To Believe. This is the softer side of King Crimson, the underbelly, the sweetbread,” he laughs as they go into Eyes Wide Open. The piece doesn’t flow quite as smoothly as it would later in the tour but for a first-time outing, it’s an honourable rendition although Elekrik fares better by virtue of having been in the setlist in 2001.
“I’m happy with that,” says Belew after a wild version of Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With. A more open-ended, inchoate atmosphere takes over in Power To Believe II which audiences had enjoyed under its previous title, Virtuous Circle, during the 2002 tour. Then as now, it remains one of the stand-out moments of the set. There are several moments where things wobble here and there, but the overall impression is a band pleased to be playing again.
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