Robert Fripp's Diary

Monday 02 July 2018

Hotel Posh, Berlin.

12.12

To bed c. 01.30. Rising 08.12. Down to the breakfasting trough.

David joined me for a DGM Breakfast Meeting, addressing various DGM and KC arisings, plus the present state of the world. The name of this tour is not arbitrary. Mucho in the air: local, national and global?

To the room for setlisting and practicing. This takes perhaps four-to-five hours of my day. Soundscaping, after band soundchecking, is perhaps twenty-to-forty minutes. No wonder, then, that I see little of the towns and places we visit, other than the hotels, venues and places-in-between (liminal zones are usually particularly-informative, and often places to be for the aspirant artist).

Friends and acquaintances who expect/demand/hope to meet, conversationalise and socialise (this includes nearly all those who believe themselves to know me) are conventionally disappointed, offended, angered that Robert is not available to personally meet, even continue to engage an ongoing e-correspondence while on tour. Perhaps these good people find that Robert’s life is not as they expect it to be; that is, maybe, very much like their own? Recently, after replying to a good friend’s e-mail about the aftershow champagne I would not be drinking with them, the morning following our e-exchange, while in the shower, I realized: they have no idea what my life is like. And this a pal. Similar stories are available, with names, places and persons, since at least November 27^th. 1981 (https://www.dgmlive.com/tour-dates/423).

No complaint: this is the life, and this is what it is to be who I am in King Crimson.

24.10 First van at 15.00. Modifying and updating all my main programmes prior to soundcheck: a considerable and important undertaking. Meeting the Royal Packagers at 17.35 and onto practicing.

Onstage punctually at 19.30. First set: fifty-five minutes. Intermission of twenty minutes, second set running exactly on time to 22.30. Discipline was dropped as it would have taken us past the curfew. A good performance, 7.5 – 8.00 in my estimation, and well received.

Berlin AdmiralsPalast II:
Into the Crimson Zone…