21ST CENTURY SCHIZOID BAND (KING CRIMSON ALUMNI GROUP) - LIVE IN JAPAN (DVD)

A very good concert DVD recorded by this band which was formed by former members of KING CRIMSON plus a new lead singer and guitarist (Jakko Jakszyk). They played for some years, and in fact they came to my country once in 2004 to play at the "Gran Forum" auditorium of the Musicians Union, a concert that I could not attend, and in fact there was very few publicity about their concert there. That time they came with Ian Wallace on drums instead of Michael Giles, who it seems he was tired of touring.

This band played some songs from some late sixties and early seventies KING CRIMSON`s albums from the time when Peter Sinfield was the lyricist of the band ("In the Court of the Crimson King", "In the Wake of Poseidon" and "Islands", with not songs being played from "Lizard"), two songs from the "McDonald and Giles" album, one soloist song from Michael Giles, and two soloist songs from Ian McDonald. But every member of the band has the chance to show their individual talents. Even Michael Giles and McDonald sang one song each, but the main lead singer is Jakko Jakszyk, who also plays very good guitar parts. This was a very good band which apparently don`t play together anymore.

I expected to see them playing the full "Birdman" suite from the McDonald and Giles" album, but they only played the final part. From the same album they played Michael Giles `s "Tomorrow`s People". The band really sounded and played very well, showing that all these musicians are very good, and that in fact they sounded very much like the late sixties-seventies version of KING CRIMSON wih Peter Sinfield as lyricist. Even the soloist songs from Michael Giles and Ian McDonald sound very related in style to the very good old KING CRIMSON from that period. Robert Fripp is not really missed while this band is playing those old songs. The same could be said about Greg Lake, Boz Burrell and other former members of KING CRIMSON from that period.

I never liked Adrian Belew`s KING CRIMSON, which for me it was not related to the old KING CRIMSON from the seventies in musical style, looks and sound. So, I prefer to watch and to listen to this 21ST CENTURY SCHIZOID BAND a lot more to than any video from KING CRIMSON with Belew in the line-up. Maybe they deserved to use the KING CRIMSON`s name more than the Belew line-ups... even without Fripp.