Eight days after their two-night run at London’s Royal Albert Hall, the double trio incarnation was on American soil for the first time in eleven years.
Notwithstanding a few issues with recalcitrant stompboxes and the occasional gremlin popping in for a guest appearance, the sextet is properly juiced up here. This isn’t particularly surprising given limbering up on the run of 14 shows back in Europe.
With THRAK only recently released, the tracks from the album positively crackle and spark with rampant, bristling energy. While Dinosaur exhibits an animated vitality, in the very next moment, that charge is immediately compressed into a gently simmering One Time, creating a quality of tension within Crimson’s music that’s inherently part of the group’s DNA regardless of lineup or era.
The caustic improv during THRAK is especially focused tonight, all killer no filler, as evidenced by the raucously excited off-mic bleating from the guitarist ensconced between Mastelotto and Bruford up on the backline.
