Park West

It’s not that often you get a ringside seat on a King Crimson soundcheck so this concert comes with a bit of treat. We get to eavesdrop of the band was they tune-up, find their levels and put things in order. A rather interesting version of TCOL is heard coming together. Very loose at first, it’s not certain that they intend to run the whole thing but as the pace picks up it’s as though the momentum they’ve quickly built pulls the whole band forward into a full performance. As they go along each member engages in small flourishes and frills that wouldn’t normally find their way into a ‘proper’ performance. This is especially true of a bone-crunching FaKcts Of Life with Belew’s laconic vocals and a stabbing placeholder solo from Fripp. If you want to see what difference an audience makes to the music then you need only compare the soundcheck version of the TCOL and an especially ferocious version of FaKcts Of Life in the gig itself. “Welcome to Park West. We’re going to play all the same mistakes we made last night,” says Belew in the show proper, then cheekily adding, “Which is none.” Yet only a couple of numbers later, a problem on Robert’s side of the stage causes him to ask for a pause. “We got time,” laughs Belew, and seconds later the band is on their way once again. There’s a great atmosphere in the show with much between-band banter which suggests they are having a ball. Also worth checking out is Dangerous Curves - a piece that had often been either dropped from the set or truncated in the actual recording on the tour. It’s here in all its not-inconsiderable glory.