Robert Fripp's Diary

Heroic attempts combinations amp consultations

23.36
So, how was the show in Hamburg? The quick answer, probably from all the group, is no idea. The sound onstage was so bad, the entire performance was a fight to hang in: we played to the bounce-back from the hall. George Glossop had no fun at the mixing desk either. He found the sound "brittle" & if he pushed anything a tad, it became overpowering.

German venues, more than others, are multi-purpose spaces which accomodate all kinds of performance. Concert halls here, by and large, don't work for Crimson. And this Crim, more rocky than concert oriented, has only played clubs (two of them!). So tonight was a sudden switch from being part of a team with the audience, to being examined under microscope. The venue, otherwise, looked good and was a fair size (1200). But the sound was unforgiving.

Pat struggled heroically with equipment malfunction of a major order. The stage set-up put me slightly off-kilter with Adrian, so our eye contact was harder. A battery in my West 48th. St. guitar died; an Eventide programme failed to ignite. Et cetera. Another night in the life of working players.

The audience were supportive, with an increasing proportion of women. I am unable to hazard a guess as what the audience thought of us. I can guess that there would have been more audients had there been a lower ticket price. But if the ticket price were lower, we wouldn't have a guarantee. If we didn't have a guarantee, we wouldn't be here. I know no way of escaping from this vicious circle, other than abandoning Europe entirely and concentrating on America & Japan.

We are considering the possibility of playing Australia in late October. There is no possibility whatsoever that we could do more than cover our expenses, and our present concern is that we'd lose. When we have the freight costs, we'll make a judgement call. Playing for nothing is one thing; paying for the privilege is another. As information, there are no wages for the players in the budget for this tour. We'll get whatever's left over from the bills, and maybe something from merchandising.