Stick Men, Adrian Belew Power Trio, Crimson ProjeKct
The Intersection, Grand Rapids, Michigan
June 24, 2012
In a great grab by The Intersection club, Grand Rapids was treated to a 3 hour prog fest featuring King Crimson music. The combined "Crimson ProjeKct" group is currently opening Dream Theater's tour, but playing their own shows on "off nights" from Dream Theater. This was one of those "off nights".
Tony Levin has his "Stick Men" group, which features himself on "Chapman Stick", Pat Mastelloto on drums, and Markus Rueter on "Touch Guitar". This trio tore through some of Tony's solo material, some of the tracks from their Stick Men releases, and a track from a Robert Fripp solo release. They also performed their interpretation of the Firebird Suite. Overall, a nice opening set.
Next up with Adrian Belew and his power trio. The group features Adrian on guitar/vocals, Julie Slick on bass guitar, and Tobias Ralph on drums. This trio stuck to some of Adrian's solo music, which I am not very familiar with. But, they also included a couple Crimson tunes they put their on stamp on. A very "jam band/improv" type set, with tons of odd tones and textures. Pretty much what you expect from Adrian, right?
After a 15 minute intermission, we got the "Crimson ProjeKct" set. Tony, Pat, and Adrian came out to start the "Crimson centric" set. They opened with "Three of a Perfect Pair", which was nicely done by just the three musicians. They moved on through "Elephant Talk" and a couple other tunes before the others all came out. This put 6 musicians on stage, and allowed them to replicate later era Crimson stuff (the two trio era music). Pat, Tony, and Adrian had their roles down. Tobias did a nice job of filling the "Bill Bruford" role, while Markus covered much of "Robert Fripp" guitar parts and sounds. Julie got to hold down the low end grooves for the set, while Tony dabbled with his stick or other parts. They pulled off "Thrak" well, while Adrian created all sorts of weirdness (including the power drill on his guitar bit). Of the many great moments, I especially liked their intro to "Indiscipline". The two trios traded the opening of the song, giving each drummer a chance to solo and mess with the beat, before handing back to the other trio. It was a very cool thing to watch live. "Red", "Frame By Frame", and even the goofy "Dinosaur" were shared with the small audience (I'd estimate around 200-250). They started wrapping up things with "Thela Hun Ginjeet", where Tony had his "funk fingers" for use on his regular bass guitar (not the stick). Generally speaking, they stuck to 80s and 90s era King Crimson material, so no "20th Century Schizoid Man" or similar. What I did notice is that the set was more focused and avoided the long slow improv sections that had become common with later era Crimson.
All three bands seemed to be enjoying the evening, and Pat Mastelloto seems to have the most fun creating different percussion loops and sounds to fill out things (all while still playing his required drum parts). Adrian and Tony appeared to be having fun with the Crimson music, while getting a chance to also share their own stuff. Tobias was amazing at working alongside Pat, and also adding his own style. Julie and Markus added those necessarily parts to help fill out the missing Fripp while letting Tony have more freedom to overlap bass parts.
After 3 hours, everyone had gotten more than their money's worth. It was a great evening of progressive music, with a bit of classical and improv thrown in.
Rating: 9 out of 10