King Crimson at the Kimmel Center

So my original plan was to just see this one show, since it was on a weekend. Like the 2008 tour, I chose to fly in during the evening of the day before, since thunderstorms are common this time of year. In hindsight, this ended up being a good choice.

Of course, I was able to meet with some of my fellow campers before the show, and we went to dinner.

The venue itself was very impressive, with outstanding acoustics, and excellent sight lines, as you'll see in the pictures below.

Humorously, the merch table was run the same person who has done the merch for Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson. Looking back at the history, I found my post from 2007. People were audibly complaining about the length of the line for the merch, saying it was the longest they had ever seen at a show.

Chuckling to myself, I was happy I loaded up on merch during the dress rehearsal show at the Egg, when the crowd was small. I guess some things don't change. ;)

The show itself consisted on a single set with an encore. As before the setlist had been already posted when I checked back at my hotel.

So, now that the tour is underway, I'll talk briefly about the music. As you know, the players are arranged in an unorthodox fashion, with the 3 drummers in the frontline, and the Sax, Bass/Stick and 2 Guitarists in the back.

The songs were selected mainly from the early albums, before the Adrian Belew/Discipline era. In particular:

• In the Court of the Crimson King (21st Century Schizoid Man)
  
• In the Wake of Poseidon (Pictures of a City)
  
• Islands (Sailor's Tale, and the Letters)
  
• Larks' Tongues in Aspic (LTIA pt1 and pt2, and Talking Drum)
  
• Red (Red, One More Red Nightmare, and Starless)
  

The only new vocal songs were 2 selections from the Scarcity of Miracles, and instrumentals from Thrak, the Power to Believe, and the ConstruKction of Light.

Other than that, the two shows differed in this way:

1. The ConstruKction of Light Part 1 was played during the rehearsal show, but not last night.
   
2. The show last night featured Vroom and Coda Marine 475.
   

This show will be a treat for any KC fan, and for me the highlights were hearing LTIA part 1, One More Red Nightmare, and Starless. All classics in my mind, and songs I had thought I would never get to hear played live.

Here's hoping for a second leg of the tour in the near future, although there is something in my gut telling me that this may be Robert Fripp's Swan Song.

As Before

Tony Levin's road diary contains some excellent shots, at the following link.

King Crimson Rehearsal at the Egg

So as TOAPP Camp ended ...

I signed up for Tony's guest-list for the final Rehearsal Show of King Crimson, at the Egg, in Albany, NY. Since it was a Monday night, I thought that I might not be able to go, but the stars aligned properly, and it became a reality.

Preshow Dinner

My camper friends and I, all agreed to meet at the Hill Street Cafe prior to the show. Brian McGuinness gets the award for being invited to the show twice, once directly by Tony Levin, and indirectly by Tony, through Uncle Funk member, Joe Beesmer.

It was fun sitting with Joe and Brian, and reminiscing about the late 80's era Woodstock.

After dinner, we drove the short distance over to the Egg, for the show. Here the biggest challenge was figuring out where to park. For some reason, I forgot to take some pictures from the plaza in front of the main entrance, since the venue is very impressive.

As I walked up to the main entrance, there were even more people from camp. What a wonderful group of people.

The Main Course

The actual show commenced promptly at 7:30 and lasted a bit over 2 hours. Of course, no photography or recording was allowed, and I would have never dreamed to violate this request. The best you're going to get is this picture of the stage.

I was also going to wait until the first show tonight to post my setlist, but someone had already done it. You can browse the setlist here. If you don't want a spoiler, then I would say, don't click it ;)

I will say my favorite KC album was well represented in this setlist.

Post Show

Afterwards, I was able to briefly say hello to Tony and Pat. Robert surprisingly came out and spoke with some of the guests, but was eventually ushered off to safety, by the tour manager, as some started requesting autographs.

But for me the highlight might have been being able to talk Jakko Jakszyk, after the show. Jakko had changed into street clothes, and very nonchalantly returned without bringing much attention to himself. Myself, and two others had a great convo with him.

I also took a few quick pics of some old friends.

The Next Morning

The 5:30AM flight out of Albany to Chicago was slightly more bearable, with my two fellow campers from Texas, Mark Cook and Mike McGary. Now, to repeat this all again this weekend. ;)

Update

Tony Levin has posted a nice account of last night's show here.