Although Gavin Harrison was Crimson’s newest recruit his work had in fact informed the Mastelotto/Bruford partnership of the double duo after Bill had read and provided the foreword to Gavin’s book Rhythmic Illusions. Although Mastelotto was unaware of the use of Gavin’s metrical exercises when they making of B’Boom and other pieces during the THRAK era, he now relished the opportunity to be working Harrison. Their opening duet featuring guitar and voice samples triggered by Pat posits some early ideas for multi-part drumming which would be further developed by Harrison for the 2014 incarnation of Crimson.
The third night at Park West, one of King Crimson and Robert Fripp’s favourite venues, finds the group on a wild high. Red continues to ambush some of the players and because of the vagaries of the soundboard mix here, Tony Levin’s aggressive Stick is well to the fore. Dinosaur has a carefree quality to it that feels like it could fall apart at any minute as it stomps back and forth. However, the energy it creates carries forth into a smoking Talking Drum and LTIA Pt2 where the band really gels for the first time in the set. Frame By Frame, which at the start of the tour had a precarious teetering quality to it now sounds bedded down while Level Five with percussive cymbal chokes newly-added for this tour, continues to provide a full-frontal assault despite some unsteady moments within its savage interactions.
This is raw and unvarnished Crim. Whatever it might lack in the way of its customary precision is made up for by the energy it generates. Proof of that comes from a two-encore set. Park West didn’t want to let these boys go and, if truth be told, the Crims didn’t want to leave either.
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