Heavy Construkction opens with Ade’s booming V-Drums which quickly become enmeshed in swathes of grunge-laden guitar lines from Fripp and Gunn. There’s a lovely moment around five and a half minutes in when the guitars seem to have had enough but Belew keeps soldiering on. A good thing he does as when the frontline come back in there’s a hellish fury to what they’re playing.
Whilst attention naturally focusses on the more demonstrative items of the P2 repertoire, there are some wonderful moments to be savoured in the more amorphous numbers. Rather than hearing these as transitional points on their way to something more substantial, there’s some real treasure to be found. The Vector Shift here is one of the most sublime and atmospheric pieces of music you’ll hear as Fripp plays some laser beam runs against a cathedral-sized wash of reverberating strings. Stunning.
“It’s the Trey Gunn show” shouts out a member of the audience during the second half of the gig. For many, Trey’s role had been somewhat obscure during Crimson shows. Now, exposed and fully in the open, Gunn’s explosive playing caused many jaws to drop and take on a new appreciation of what this musician was capable of. Certainly he has a few moments here that are hair-raising in their attack and savagery. On the whole though, a slightly uneven show with the energy sitting in the first rather than the second half.
