LIVE AT THE ORPHEUM

The good news here is that King Crimson, after four and a half decades, still exists. Also, after years of running away from Crimson's back catalog of simply amazing music, his Frippness is now embracing the history of the band.

I'm sad to say I missed this tour last fall, coming at I time when attending such a concert was not an easy thing for me. I hear the live shows were spectacular. Unfortunately, I have only this disc and DVD to judge them.

My first impression is that the trio of drummers seems to have been a focus of this tour. And they do not disappoint, for the most part. It says something about Bill Bruford's abilities that these three percussionist together on One More Red Nightmare and Starless cannot match the jaw- dropping drumming on the original versions.

But don't get me wrong. These are very good renditions of songs from different stages of KC's vast and varied career. Obviously, Fripp is the only one here who played on all of the original versions of these songs. Other than Smilin' Bob, Mel Collins goes back the furthest of this group, having appeared on "Lizard" (sadly not represented here), "Islands" and "Red". Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto represent the later incarnations of the band (although the 80's albums are also not referenced), and Gavin Harrison and Jakko Jakszyk are here from the most recent grouping.

While they are quite competent at performing the classic songs, I am sad to say that they barely put their own musical signatures on these classic tracks. In fact, the only true variation from the original versions is Levin's funky bass line in Starless.

Still, this is an enjoyable disc. Particularly the fine version of Sailor's Tale.

One last note. Instead of giving us a CD and DVD of different formats of the same set, it would have been a better gift to the fans to give us the entire set. Hearing these guys play Larks' Tongues In Aspic 1 & 2 and of course 21st Century Schizoid Man would have made this album far more enjoyable.