My thanks to Pbogdan2009 for sending in this review of RF and the League of Crafty Guitarists gig in Barcelona on Saturday 25th July.
As much as I love King Crimson’s music, I wasn’t expecting to hear any King Crimson music at this concert; I knew that Mr. Fripp’s Guitar Craft seminars (and the League, which is the audience-facing side of Mr. Fripp’s classes) are very much a separate project from King Crimson (and from other musical projects of Mr. Fripp, for that matter). In fact I had very little knowledge of the Guitar Craft world, except for the very intriguing account given by Eric Tamm, a student in one of the Guitar Craft seminars held in the eighties, in his book “Robert Fripp: From King Crimson to Guitar Craft”, and for a live LP (also from the eighties) from the League. And yet, the concert I attended last week presented not just a display of breathtaking virtuosity, combining lyrical moments and raw power with pinpoint accuracy and synchronization from ten acoustic (plus one electric) guitars, but also a link to the elusive (yet constantly reemerging) King Crimson musical world – I will explain in a moment.
The concert hall in Barcelona was small – around 100 seats – and therefore seemed like an environment well suited to a close encounter with the League (just like in the heyday of progressive rock, when bands started out in small venues and succeeded in building a close relationship with the audience, unlike your usual modern super group playing to stadium-sized audiences).
With around 30 minutes to go before the official starting time, a group of (sixteen, I think) people with acoustic guitars entered the hall, walked past the audience and stood packed on one side, playing some wonderfully synchronized sequences. They did this several times, changing their position in the room. At one point the guitarists were all spread out around the concert hall, and the notes they played passed on from one guitar to another, creating a surround sequence. Interesting and unexpected!
And now for the main piece: ten members of the League emerged from behind the black curtains, dressed in black, and sat down forming a half-circle. Maestro Fripp, also clad in black, sat at one side of the group. The concert was divided into three main parts: two group sessions, and in between a session by Mr. Fripp alone.
As the title of the concert – “Soundscapes” – may have hinted, this would be more than a purely acoustic concert of the League; Mr. Fripp played I believe the only electric guitar in the mix, adding a colourful (and at times extremely powerful) touch.
The music sounded to me like a combination of Guitar Craft themes (perhaps written by Mr. Fripp to serve as training material for the seminars), King Crimson guitarscapes – delivered in that instantly recognizable pointillist manner of intertwined melodic lines, which is characteristic of King Crimson’s musical style in the eighties, but also some surprises – I believe I heard an interesting rendition of Jimi Hendrix’ “Crosstown Traffic”, and the title soundtrack of a famous action motion picture.
The interlude featuring Mr. Fripp alone on his guitar gave the audience a sort of “music of the universe” soundscape delivered over a Frippertronics tape loop background.
All of this was some 1 ½ hours of extremely enjoyable music played with impressive virtuosity, with the final encore presenting what was, to this Crimhead’s delight, the high point of the concert: a sublime, fully acoustic rendition of 21st Century Schizoid Man. For this one the players (including Mr. Fripp) pulled out their microphones from their guitars, stood up and came together forming a much smaller circle, and played it all unamplified. It was a wonderful deconstruction to the basics, an x-ray if you like, of a gigantic piece of music that would epitomize an entire musical style called progressive rock. You could actually hear Mr. Fripp whisper, counting out time (“three, four…three, four”) during the brief pauses in the score.
I never realized when that 1 ½ hours passed, it was like the blink of an eye, like the concert had just started. My only regret…there are two, actually: that I did not sit on the right hand side of the room – as Mr. Fripp hid well behind a rack of amplifiers at the left corner of the stage and would never emerge from behind the monolith except to greet the audience, and to play Schizoid Man with the group in the end; and that neither he nor the other players spoke to the audience at all during the concert (although he did greet us with a cheerful look and with his hand raised to the forehead, shading his eyes like a sea captain scanning the line of the horizon through bright sunlight). But I guess the players’ inconspicuous and speechless presence onstage made the powerful statement that it was only the music that mattered that night. And what music that was!
As much as I love King Crimson’s music, I wasn’t expecting to hear any King Crimson music at this concert; I knew that Mr. Fripp’s Guitar Craft seminars (and the League, which is the audience-facing side of Mr. Fripp’s classes) are very much a separate project from King Crimson (and from other musical projects of Mr. Fripp, for that matter). In fact I had very little knowledge of the Guitar Craft world, except for the very intriguing account given by Eric Tamm, a student in one of the Guitar Craft seminars held in the eighties, in his book “Robert Fripp: From King Crimson to Guitar Craft”, and for a live LP (also from the eighties) from the League. And yet, the concert I attended last week presented not just a display of breathtaking virtuosity, combining lyrical moments and raw power with pinpoint accuracy and synchronization from ten acoustic (plus one electric) guitars, but also a link to the elusive (yet constantly reemerging) King Crimson musical world – I will explain in a moment.
The concert hall in Barcelona was small – around 100 seats – and therefore seemed like an environment well suited to a close encounter with the League (just like in the heyday of progressive rock, when bands started out in small venues and succeeded in building a close relationship with the audience, unlike your usual modern super group playing to stadium-sized audiences).
With around 30 minutes to go before the official starting time, a group of (sixteen, I think) people with acoustic guitars entered the hall, walked past the audience and stood packed on one side, playing some wonderfully synchronized sequences. They did this several times, changing their position in the room. At one point the guitarists were all spread out around the concert hall, and the notes they played passed on from one guitar to another, creating a surround sequence. Interesting and unexpected!
And now for the main piece: ten members of the League emerged from behind the black curtains, dressed in black, and sat down forming a half-circle. Maestro Fripp, also clad in black, sat at one side of the group. The concert was divided into three main parts: two group sessions, and in between a session by Mr. Fripp alone.
As the title of the concert – “Soundscapes” – may have hinted, this would be more than a purely acoustic concert of the League; Mr. Fripp played I believe the only electric guitar in the mix, adding a colourful (and at times extremely powerful) touch.
The music sounded to me like a combination of Guitar Craft themes (perhaps written by Mr. Fripp to serve as training material for the seminars), King Crimson guitarscapes – delivered in that instantly recognizable pointillist manner of intertwined melodic lines, which is characteristic of King Crimson’s musical style in the eighties, but also some surprises – I believe I heard an interesting rendition of Jimi Hendrix’ “Crosstown Traffic”, and the title soundtrack of a famous action motion picture.
The interlude featuring Mr. Fripp alone on his guitar gave the audience a sort of “music of the universe” soundscape delivered over a Frippertronics tape loop background.
All of this was some 1 ½ hours of extremely enjoyable music played with impressive virtuosity, with the final encore presenting what was, to this Crimhead’s delight, the high point of the concert: a sublime, fully acoustic rendition of 21st Century Schizoid Man. For this one the players (including Mr. Fripp) pulled out their microphones from their guitars, stood up and came together forming a much smaller circle, and played it all unamplified. It was a wonderful deconstruction to the basics, an x-ray if you like, of a gigantic piece of music that would epitomize an entire musical style called progressive rock. You could actually hear Mr. Fripp whisper, counting out time (“three, four…three, four”) during the brief pauses in the score.
I never realized when that 1 ½ hours passed, it was like the blink of an eye, like the concert had just started. My only regret…there are two, actually: that I did not sit on the right hand side of the room – as Mr. Fripp hid well behind a rack of amplifiers at the left corner of the stage and would never emerge from behind the monolith except to greet the audience, and to play Schizoid Man with the group in the end; and that neither he nor the other players spoke to the audience at all during the concert (although he did greet us with a cheerful look and with his hand raised to the forehead, shading his eyes like a sea captain scanning the line of the horizon through bright sunlight). But I guess the players’ inconspicuous and speechless presence onstage made the powerful statement that it was only the music that mattered that night. And what music that was!
