Last night's show fell together, with the emphasis on "fall" and "together". The overall performance held its integrity, rather than being an episodic unveiling of surprises, treats, terrors and collapses, all of which continued to feature but without disturbing the sense of a single event.
A new twist on "FraKtured": sweat managed to unseat my grasp on the pick. This maybe a first in my career: under normal conditions it is almost impossible to remove the pick from my firm, relaxed grip. But a small club in Nashville during June clearly provides abnormal conditions. Rather than flail even more pathetically than usual, I stopped and continued.
This piece continues to present me with insights into playing. Friday night I noticed (while up and flying) that to privilege the secondary accompanying part, even to grant it equality with the melody line, disturbs the picking. So, my aim last night was to slightly privilege the melody. Little hope of that, pick sliding around. I'm not sure how all this translates musically for an audience, but it demonstrates that high levels of challenge provide rewards for those dopey enough to expose themselves to public ridicule while feebly attempting to embrace the challenge.
Once again, a generous and supportive audience.
23.44
I am embarrassed. Tonight's King Crimson performance was not honourable, and there are not many examples of this I can readily recall, but this Sunday evening the band simply wasn't there. It's not that there were mistakes & bad cues, matched in the main with recoveries: examples of playing, even good playing, are irrelevant. Tonight's show lacked the integrity that characterised the performance yesterday.
There are several possible contributory factors but right now I'm not going to elucidate them. It's packing time.
"The more failures, the more successes."
