I saw the first London show - superb. That is some backing band Mel Collins has! I jest, but his solos were a highlight for me, the man has lost nothing of his fire and invention since the 1972 tour and has perhaps added some guile.

Probably the element I enjoyed most was watching the interplay between the three drummers, who were incredibly adept at not getting in each other’s way, working as a team almost intuitively.  They were clearly having a blast too and kicked up a glorious racket while they were doing it. And hats off to the rocket-powered, properly bombastic, kiss-my-arse-Buddy-Rich drum solo Gavin Harrison unrolled on 21cSM. That had me grinning all over my face. Awesome, really, just to see King Crimson playing that song - and belting it out with a precision and ferocity that could put a lot of metal bands to shame.

None of this is to take away from the unique showmanship of Robert Fripp. When he jumped off the upper stage tier with a scissor kick, skidded to the front on his knees and demanded to know if we were ready to RAWK?? he had us in the palm of his hand.

gravyface wrote: Saw them in TO on Friday. Overall, the show was excellent, but way too much drums in the FOH mix: took away from the arrangements more often than not, particularly on Starless' build-up.  Probably could've got away with just Gavin up the middle and a utility guy playing accents and the key/pad parts. Thought Red was a bit mangled with the three-drummer flam assault vs. a solo pocket beat.  They also got away from Bruford's classic "garbage can lid" cymbal on the change and instead did some jungle thing that sounded a tad lame.

I am not sure that your criticism is right on ... but I can see where your are requesting a bit less, in order to see more, and that you had a preference for the simplicity that Bill Bruford often gave us, as opposed to the over abuncance of drums in the current line up. I did not think that they were always duplicating each other, although adding more to each other is probably what we should be expecting, however, I am not sure that all of us are "musicians" to have the kind of critical knowhow that you displayed. The interpretation of it, is another story.

I, did not find any issues with it. Same thing for me, if they had used 20 violins instead of a melotron ... and you would have said that the melottron is better, and I probably would have liked the orchestrated version even better, as it would have "expanded" the ability and the entent of the music even further. And I always think that doing this to all music is a very good thing ... but sometimes we're so stuck up on our original thoughts that we can not see the music expand ... I like the fact that Robert Fripp has seen to it, that it evolves some, however small that might be for your tastes and mine. And it did make for a thunderous version of King Crimson, that was excellent, and stood out beautifully in concert.