The opening night of the G3 tour found Fripp werning and squerning in bonny Glasgow. Given that the vast majority of people attending that night would’ve have turned out for the other members of the G3 - Joe Satriani and Steve Vai - it’s not surprising that Fripp’s ethereal soundscapes didn’t play too well with punters wanting something more traditional in the shredding guitar department. Axedog’s reaction was typical of several posting on the Vai com message boards at the time of the gig: “I'm a King Crimson fan, I have most of their albums, but I have to say I was extremely disappointed with his set. All he did was his extremely boring ambient soundscapes stuff, which any mediocre guitarist can do with a guitar synth...Sorry Robert, but you can do better than this. You're an amazing guitarist, and you could have blown us away if you'd felt like it.” On the other hand Brido, encountering Fripp for the first time was impressed: “I arrived just as Fripp was starting. Wow. Not many people got what he was doing, but I was blown away. I was completely knew to Fripp, I have heard of him, but never heard. I thought we would be some jazzy guy! What orchestration skills, he would make Brian May sweat! The use of effects to built melody upon melody, layer upon layer was incredible. I am definitely going to check him out!” For seasoned soundscape listeners, the three Paradise variations contains some awesome (in the original sense of the word) orchestration that find Fripp’s music in a dark, foreboding mood. Stirring, scary and in places, frighteningly beautiful.
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