King Crimson - 2003-11-07 Pageant Theatre, St. Louis, Missouri (2020)

“Thank you, thank you. That was the St.Louis Blues as immortalised by King Crimson,” quips Belew after Level Five and ProzaKc Blues gets the show off to a storming start. After the ebullient Dinosaur, it’s interesting to see just how far down they take the tempo and feel with One Time. The soundscape occupying the middle section seems like a gift coming as it does amidst the stomp of the preceding number and the frenetic riffing and vocal playfulness that makes Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With so irresistible. “I’m happy with that,” laughs Belew at the end of the piece and so he should be. Again, the reliable highpoint of the tour, Larks Tongues In Aspic Part IV, brings its usual mix of hard-edged riffing with its near-surgical precision to those fast-running lines that thread through the beast. Listen closely as Fripp works his way across and up the fretboard and right at the last of those clusters, his fingers betray him, falling away into silence. It’s quite a remarkable ride. There’s some digital shuddering on this recording, most obviously as Adrian is name-checking the band but it quickly dies away leaving a lovely Deception Of The Thrush unsullied by such worries. In the quiet following T.S. Eliot’s first ghostly manifestation, potentially a transcendent moment in the gig, there’s a couple of punters who think that what’s needed at exactly at that point is the benefit of their wit. Give me digital shudder any day of the week!

Robert Fripp - Guitar
Adrian Belew - Guitar, Vocals
Pat Mastelotto - Acoustic And Electronic Percussion
Trey Gunn - Warr Guitar