Crimbus Heading Towards Toad's Place, New Haven.
I am continuing to recover from the failure of last night's post-show chilling, equilibrating & absorption process at the Beacon.
Q. What happens when business people enter the band's private space?
A. The band has no private space.
Q. What if a band member needs private space to chill, equilibrate & absorb, and there is no private space?
A. The band member is fucked.
The Crimson private band space is important, at least to me, and particularly important at major cities where The World & His Mother arrive to have a good suck at any available attention that is, and is not, available to them. This is why I avoid going online before important cities: instant messaging for free tickets, posts demanding/expressing a meet before/after/during, plus various demands for my available limited attention, nearly all of which is needed for the performance. That is, needed for the performance.
I note, as I have often before, that almost none of the people I would like to meet, and are active contributors to my wellbeing, contact me. This leaves of all those who do, nearly all want something of me. That something of me equates primarily to making a demand upon my attention. If we ask why seven times the answers that come back do not often include to support the performance. All the people I would hope to see after a performance are all the people who would never think to bother me. All the people who would like to say hello, who know beyond a shadow of doubt that they are the only exception to the no-meet-and-say-hello rule and Fripp would really like them to see only them to say hello, these are the people for whom the Crimson Private Space is constructed to exclude.
It turns out that, last night, a band member invited business people into the band's private space and then left, leaving them alone. I was the only remaining band member, having planned grounding time post-performance; in NYC, a particularly difficult & intense performance. I waited 45 minutes for the people to leave, and they didn't. Rules of politeness prohibited me from asking them to go; normal courtesy required that the guests were allowed sufficient space to see for themselves what was appropriate; i.e. in this context, to leave after a short while.
After waiting 45 minutes for them to leave, they didn't, so I went instead, unsettled & angry that the Crimson Private Space had been so carelessly undermined, and returned to the arid, cheap-but-expensive hotel room that claims chic but lacks insulation & heart, is uncomfortable & noisy, and to a blinking message light. The Happy Gigster's Guide To Pleasant Touring warns that blinking message lights in hotels (of whatever calibre) are rarely harbingers of good news. The message light continued to blink, unanswered, when I checked out.
I was just in bed, recapitulating the day and reflecting on how, in major cities, those closest to you, who know the pressure, willingly add to its intensity when, at 01.05, the telephone rang. The Happy Gigster's Guide To Even More Pleasant Touring has this helpful relevant advice: no-one who calls a hotel room at 01.05 is likely to have your best interests at heart. I didn't answer.
The band member offering hospitality at the Beacon was being friendly & polite, and thoughtless. The friendly gesture involved payment, the payment of offering hospitality. This business people invited into the Crimson Private Space are good people, and of the Crimson family; but the band member didn't remain to pay the tab, nor to personally accept the repercussions from their kind gesture. These repercussions were passed to me, unbidden.
The longer story involves three stages of sleep, and the above is the short version. The lesson is a good one: what happens when we fall asleep is that someone else gets fucked. And last night, it was me.
22.16 Crimbus Outside Toad's Place, New Haven.
Fond memories of playing at Toad's are brought into sharp relief when entering the club in unforgiving daylight. It has the stickiest dressing-room floors of any club I have ever known, in over four decades of playing clubs. It also has the stickiest stage that I have ever known, much stickier even than the dressing-room floor. The artists' bathroom might be brother to the famous Origin Of Wrathchild toilet in the dressing-room of a Manchester club played by Sunday All Over The World (and where I first heard Living Colour, on the house system). In the Manchester club the toilet was an integral part of the dressing room; at Toad's it was mercifully on the other side of a door.
The New Haven show was in sharp juxtaposition to the Beacon, and relaxed in comparison. It is a substantial compliment to this band that it can move from Kingston to New York to New Haven, delivering three strong consecutive shows in very different venues, without missing a beat. Or in Crimson's case, while dropping several beats, notes, changes & sections.
A young man who works in Toad's came up to the front of stage-left at the end of soundcheck. (Close rendition of exchange between young man who works in Toad's & Grumpy, a guitarist completing his stage set up -- )
YM: Excuse me, I don't mean to bother you -- GG: Do you know the story about the man who came up to Hendrix and said I don't' want to bother you?
YM: No. GG: The man said I don't want to bother you & Jimi said then don't.
YM: I only wanted to tell you something. GG: Then tell me. Don't say I don't mean to bother you because that's a bother.
YM: I've worked with The California Guitar Trio several times. GG: Oh. Very good.
YM: They said you were a good person. GG: Now you know for yourself that they lied.
The standing audience was generous & supportive. They threw balloons and even a bra. At the end of the second encore, Grumpy moved to centre of stage and spoke: It is very rare nowadays that I step to the microphone and say Good Evening Hippies; then proffered the bra as a prize to be won by whoever could answer the question --
What is the first line of In The Wake Of Poseidon?
A bearded, earnest & mature gentleman immediately in front of stage right came close -- Plato's spawn cold ivied eyes -- but failed because he didn't go on to snare truth in bone and globe.
So the bra was offered as a prize for a second, easier question -- what number do you dial to get 911? (911 is the American emergency number. For an English audience, the question would have been what number do you dial to get 999?). A woman in the second row had it immediately: 911! And got the bra.
Pat & Trey are now moving to the former Crewbus, and several of the crew are moving to the former Bandbus, to carry two halves of the team to different airports for flights to Mexico City tomorrow. The deciding factor on choice of airport is the return flights.
"We may do whatever we like, providing we can pay the bill."
