24th June 2006
A beautiful performance in Udine on the tour was not without incident. Somewhere in the midst of the music, a person decides the normal courtesies and etiquette do not apply to them as Robert’s diary records. “A supportive, generous audience with one significant exception: a character who approached the stage, during The LCG’s first block of pieces, and put his stuff on the stage. I was standing offstage right, and it looked as if he might be an official photographer/critic of the arrogant kind. The act of music is always sacred, and the performance space (specifically, the stage) is also sacred. So, for a character to walk up & dump his stuff on it, as if it were a table, is sacrilegious. Even for a pillock of exceptional dopiness, this is rude.
I found my feet walking, carrying me off the front of the stage, right up to him, lifting his stuff off the stage (the stuff included a white face mask), placing it in his hands. He began to protest. As a semi-pro player in the West Country during the 1960s, I am not completely unfamiliar with the about-to-be-becoming outbreak of violence; and I sensed this particular character was on the turn. But Vincenza, a visiting Crafty-in-security mode, approached. I beckoned to him, and he led the man away.”
What’s astonishing about all of this isn’t so much the event itself but rather Fripp’s ability to get back on stage and engage with the music that might be waiting to appear. The piece At The End Of Time is exceptional, its gently keening notes describe something that’s approaching sadness but hasn’t yet given up hope.
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