NEAL AND JACK AND ME

2.5 stars really.

This DVD will please many of the third Crimson phase fans combines two tours: the Beat tour and the Three Of A Perfect pair. Oddly enough, they are presented in a non- chronological order, but this is a very minor point. One of the things I was particularly uneasy about was Bruford's use of electronic percussions and drums and we get a load of those "things" and like all technology novelty, the risk is that it ages poorly and sadly here, it is the case. Another point I had not appreciated is the stage presence of Adrian Belew, which is clearly copied from David Byrne from his collaborations with The Talking Heads - I love the T Heads, but Belew's stage antics are too derivative and ill fitted for Crimson. There are a few tracks present twice and most notably the boring Mate Kusadai.

Strictly on the visual front, Crimson was clearly making efforts to look hip and appeal to a more new-wave-ish public. Those were the days! But I never said that they were good, either!

Among the bonuses, are a video clip and a few titbits, but sadly still missing is that mini- concert footage filmed for the Discipline release and them playing four tracks in front of a red curtain. I may be severe with my rating of this DVD but I am not a real fan of that era.

A DVD from the 80's era of King Crimson. Needless to say, if you don't like 80's era (Discipline, Beat, and Three Of A Perfect Pair), this one is not for you. Only Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part II hark back to a previous time in KC's history. Despite (for some) this, this is a very very good DVD. All the songs are performed excellently and without missing a beat (no pun intended). Bruford is a machine behind the drums, Fripp is fantastic on guitar (especially with the solo on Lark's Tongue Part III), Levin's stick work is top notch, as is Belew's singing and guitar work.

The first show is taken from the Three Of A Perfect Pair Tour in Japan in 1984. Very good stuff! The songs flow together very well and Belew also segues them well (for the most part). The only downside to this concert is that (for a reason unknown to me) they decided to play with "visuals" for certain parts of certain songs, ie making things in black and white, superimposing images over other ones, playing with the lights so that you can't see everything that is going on, slowing the picture down while leaving the sound the same, etc. That latter is a big problem in Indiscipline, IMO ruining a great drum performance by Bruford. It also occurs in Three Of A Perfect Pair, but its tolerable there. Other than that, this concert is great. Highlights: Waiting Man, Industry (my favorite version of all the ones i've heard), Lark's Tongues Part II, Indiscipline (minus the effects they added), and Fripp's solo in Lark's Tongues Part III.

The second show is The Noise- Live In Frejus. This was taken on their Beat tour, thus no songs from Three of A Perfect Pair make a controbution. This much shorter show has some excellent choices that were left off the first one, most notably is The Sheltering Sky. The video quality is rawer, but this doesn't take anything away from the show (some will even say it adds to it). The only downside i can see is the repeats of some songs from the first show, but i suppose this was unavoidable. Highlights: Waiting Man, The Sheltering Sky, Neal And Jack And Me, and Indiscipline (with great drum solo by Bruford).

All in all a fantastic live DVD to sum up the life of 80's era King Crimson. A must own from crimson fans (especially of the 80's era). A nice addition to any musical DVD library. Recommended!

This DVD set contains 2 different concerts of the '80s era King Crimson. First, from 1982, is "The Noise - Live in Frejus." And the second one is 1984's "Three of A Perfect Pair - Live in Japan". I personally owned the VCD format of the first and the laser disc format of the second. But since now it's combined into one package, I purchased the DVD also.

"Live at Frejus" is a short video, only part of the entire set list is represented here. Most songs were taken from "Beat" album. On the special features for this DVD I found another version of "Elephant Talk" (Discipline album, with red cover artwork) recorded at this venue but not seen on the video portion. For me this track was my first entry to get attracted with the album. For those of you who plan to buy this DVD, this can be heard on Tony's Photo Album in the Special Features section. The show kicks off with Bill and Adrian play the electronic drum kit in tandem, and it's a great thing to see how the band put this song together live since in the studio they can dub and overlay tracks. Tony Levin's driving bass rhythms is for me sounds like a walking bass and it's an excellent experience looking at his performance. I always like how Tony plays his bass which I also saw him on Peter Gabriel "Secret World" live DVD. Another player is Bill Bruford who plays incredible drum solo just before "Indiscipline". It's really awesome and it's totally unique sound any drummer has ever played. Even though he is good with acoustic drum, he is also great with the electronic drums as well. I recognized this when he played at "An Evening of Yes Music Plus" by ABWH.

The "Japan" concert was once my favorite and it helped me to understand Discipline (the New Crimson music style) better. This is a full-fledge concert video with three colour albums namely Discipline (red album cover), Beat (blue) and Three Of A Perfect Pair (yellow). The band has masterfully design the concert by telling you the background colour to tell from which album the particular song being played is taken from.

Two years down the road finds the band much mature in their stage approach. Belew has gained his own confidence as a permanent frontman for the band. Comparing tracks, like "Waiting Man," shows them to have been better as a band. Fripp appears more reticent, as usual. Stand out tracks are "Frame By Frame," a gentle "Matte Kudasai," and the industrial noise fest of "Industry." Hey, I started enjoying "Industry" due to watching this video. Fripp plays wonderfully.

There are bonuses: Tony's road photos and the rarely seen Crimson video for "Sleepless." The video quality is generally excellent, even though there are some more grainy sequences and some glitches coming from the original source films/tapes. This is an excellent prog DVD that anyone who likes prog should own it. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

King Crimson's 2004 video release of Neal and Jack and Me is a combination package of two previously released videos from the band that are now very hard to find on their original sources. Both are from the often underrated 80s era of the group, where the sound was a concise and often dense form of new wave pop with many progressive tendencies. Both videos have decent video quality, but keep in mind it was the 80s and our views of great video quality now are drastically different than back in the 80s. The sound is also lush and every member gets a proper mix and no one is left out of the mix. What you get here is two shows (both with similar sets, with Live at Frejus having 2/3 of its set the same as the Three of a Perfect Pair video) with great differences in overall mood and some wild improvisation as well.

The first show that you can watch on this set is Three of a Perfect Pair Live in Japan, which is the bulk of the set. It begins out of sequence with Three of a Perfect Pair being the first song played (even though it doesn't open the show). I get a bit annoyed with the video effects on this song, which feel very cliched and they throw the mood of the song off. After an introduction in which all the members are presented (you even hear Fripp's voice!), No Warning opens the set with a nice varience of mixed effects and improvisational lines that break loose once Fripp introduces Larks Tongue in Aspic Pt. III with the wild guitar intro. The next three songs, Thela Hun Ginjeet, Frame By Frame (which would happen in the set after Red, but it was mysteriously absent), and Matte Kudasai are all well played and well sung by Belew.

Industry is quite a sight to watch, because at one point Bruford is what appears to be sniffing his drum sticks as he brings one down and one up. Belew also gets a chance on this dvd to show off his drum skills, playing the drum intro to Indiscipline to keep a beat while Bruford goes on a tangent as he continues his drum solo. And on Sartori in Tangier Belew offers a nice unison performance with Bruford to create the necessary percussive sound. And on Waiting Man, Belew plays harmonically and very well alongside Bruford on the percussion. The show on the whole is very good and makes up for the bulk of the set.

Live at Frejus is a 50 minute video comprised of seven songs. The opener, Waiting Man, is one of the most emotional pieces I've seen, especially since it's drawn out to 8 minutes where the percussion really gets a good workout. Belew's vocal performance here is also very emotive and could bring a man to tears. After a ripping Matte Kudasai, The Sheltering Sky is played with Bruford opening it up with a precise african slit board performance. This piece also gets drawn out a few extra minutes, with nice extended passages from both Belew and Fripp and great interplay between the two. Neal and Jack and Me follows with some more slightly out of sync guitars and some fun vocals from Belew and some great leads from Fripp (which sound rather dissonant over the non-dissonant song). The rest of the set is also represented on the first show, so you can expect much of the same (except Bruford's drum solo is mildly different right before Indiscipline, in which Belew draws out the song to around 10 minutes with his vocals).

But that's not all, there's a nice collage of Tony Levin's photos with music from the shows on the disc in the background as well as the video for Sleepless. Nice additions, but they aren't terribly spectacular.

In the end, Neal and Jack and Me is the ultimate dvd for the 80s King Crimson aficionado, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair get well represented as well as the classic Discipline material. Even if you aren't a huge fan of 80s Crimson, I'd recommend this video because they are a great band to watch live. All fans of the group or progressive rock should also get this because of the same sentiments. 4.5/5.

Witnessing their important "new" era, that's the reunion of King Crimson with some different great musicians such as Tony Levin (fantastic bass player as a session man) and Adrian Belew (this latter coming from his meaningful experience with the controversial band Talking Heads, the odd "creature" of David Byrne...) in the early eighties, this time FRIPP AND BRUFORD are able to demonstrate the power of their performance during a couple of Tours: the "Beat" Tour as well as the "Three of a Perfect Pair" Tour ...but unfortunately the editing - performed on this latter for the DVD format - partially ruined the output of the whole opera. Anyway Bruford had been with K.C. on stage off and on, as for some other collaborations in that period, and besides his use of electronic percussions seems to change the original mood of the band, even though in a few performances only, so there's no continuity in the development of their historical execution live of the early eighties, above all by regarding of the strange line- up invented by Fripp... therefore I missed so much the mini concert footage concerning the period of "Discipline", because this latter for me is their best album of the eighties, but it's a minor question, regarding of a great number of songs inside (right 23!!), anyway representing a good sample of that interesting period!!

Three disciplined beats!

It surprises me that the last collaborator review about this DVD was written four years ago, it may be because it is pretty difficult to find it, like it happened to me, but now I fortunately managed to get it and of course, want to write the review. "Neal and Jack and Me" was released in 2004, though what you will find here are a couple of concerts from the 80s, one from Frejus recorded in 1982, and the other from Japan performed in 1984.

The main set has to be the one from Japan, featuring sixteen songs from the Discipline- Beat-Three of a Perfect Pair era (except Larks Tongues in Aspic Part II), so the line-up consists on Belew, Bruford, Fripp and Levin, four exceptional musicians. So since now I warn you, if you don't like King Crimson 80s era, then don't watch this DVD, on the other hand, if you like it, then you will have a smile with this concert.

There is something I'd like to say, no matter which King Crimson era they are performing, the concert is always good, but we are talking about one of the best bands ever, we know their quality is inherent in each and every member. The concert is exquisite, they are four crazy members creating outstanding music and actually enjoying what they are doing, and that is transmitted to both, the crowd and the people watching the DVD.

Despite the concert is almost flawless, the subjectivity enters here, because there are a couple of tracks that I simply don't like, like the one they chose to finish this performance: "Heartbeat", is a song I've never dug; and besides that, what I did not really like was the decision of putting some extra-concert images, of the band sight-seeing in Japan.

But well, now on the positive side, a terrific version of "Indiscipline" can be appreciated here, along with other precious moments like the performance of songs such as "Dig me", "Waiting Man", "Frame by Frame" or "Sleepless". Now the concert from Frejus is much shorter, with just a seven-track set, with five songs that were also included in the Japan show, but here "Neal and Jack and Me" and "The Sheltering Sky" were played, the latter was a song I did not expect to see, and left me impressed, because the atmosphere they created is simply amazing.

At last I got this DVD, and am really happy with it, though it is not a masterpiece, I highly recommend it. My final grade is four stars.

Enjoy it!