Starbucks, 16th. & Curtis, Denver.
A grey day & rather nippy.
From an online review of the San Francisco performance --
Another thing that I noticed was how the music had to survive all the purposes the audience brought to the evening.
The online posting of Mr. Clueless of Budapest (reported by Brian Mafi on KNews July 17th. 2003) is, well, clueless; English Neil's is simply dopey (ET October 26th. 2003); tcj's (yesterday to KNews) is arrogant.
The above quote contains more quality information in one sentence than I have found in all & any of the online commentaries from KC-related sites during (for politeness' sake, let's say) 2003. Oh! the gratitude I feel towards someone who has seen. What is seen is not always comfortable, comforting nor flattering, but always carries authenticity. This feeds me. It reminds me I am a human being, that I am, and that I am alive.
To be fair to the audience, the music has also to survive the purposes & frailties that all the participants brought to the event - the players, the support team & the business interests at work. But the good news is, in a Crimson performance the audience have a critical contribution to make. This is not true of all performances: some artists' shows are deliberately controlled, as much as is possible, to prevent the audience from having effect (and this is not necessarily a bad thing).
tcj's dismissive comment like Fripp "sensing" this stuff for years now, I think it really is time he hung it up - if I had no sense of the audience, after performing in public regularly for 42 years, what value would I hold as a player? Often, the sense is not as specific as there's a guy in 18D with a minidisk recorder. It's more like we are playing well, the audience seem supportive, it feels like mud, why is the show dead on the inside? This question is directed towards the subtleties of performance, an area of my keen, longtime & ongoing interest.
In a subtle world, Crimson is a blunt instrument. In a blunt world, Crimson is a subtle instrument. The performances that Crimson plays are rather like hewing rock from the cliff-face. I'd like to move from the quarry towards sculpture before the little edge available to me is not blunted by witless (no doubt genuinely felt) contributions, such as those of the above posters, whose insights into performance are educational but not in a way that supports my own enquiries.
How may we publicly discuss syntax while some posters argue that, even if the alphabet might be constrained to form words, there's no chance that a sentence can be formed to hold meaning? That there are deeper structures at work that guide, shape & direct both form & meaning? The capacity to read the front page of a newspaper isn't much of a qualification to present a considered opinion on linguistics, although Mr. Clueless of Budapest might claim that because he bought the newspaper, he has the right. tcj persuades me that his experience of performance is not the same as mine. I do not deny tcj his experience; I would be grateful if he does not deny my experience, simply because he does not share it.
23.52 Living Colour were superb. I caught all their show & would not have believed this was the first show of their tour. It took 20 minutes for their sound to pull together, and then they owned the stage and house. I went up in front of the stage as I did when 17 & 18, seeing bands in Poole & Bournemouth. A young fan once more.
An interesting show for KC. Mysterious sound problems. Adrian completely dropping out & returning, and myself suddenly losing power. The Rhythm Buddies also had concerns. And misunderstandings on the setlist. Did it matter? Well, the form & flow was not as formed & flowing as a one might hope for in a perfect world. The audience were supportive & generous & no flashes that I saw. There was some strangeness in the energy field. As to what it might have been, no idea.
"Begin with the possible and move gradually towards the impossible."
