NEAL AND JACK AND ME

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