King Crimson Chase Away the Storm in the Middle of Palmanova (2019)

Location: Palmanova / Piazza Grande / Italy
Date: Saturday, 06.07.2019

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This report almost didn’t happen, because it was a close call before the concert by the British prog rock giants King Crimson in the heart of the Italian town of Palmanova, on Piazza Grande, got washed out by the storm and torrential rain. At the hour when the band should already have been on stage, it was pouring buckets, while lightning and thunder only made the brutal storm worse.

After about an hour of waiting, once the storm died down, the organizers did manage to pull the show off after all, but King Crimson, who we’d already been convinced we wouldn’t get to see that evening, cut their set by almost half. Their chief, the eccentric guitar genius Robert Fripp, who goes to bed “with the chickens,” has called off or cut short a show over smaller inconveniences than this, but this time he surprised us positively, so the audience, a mix of nationalities that included no shortage of Slovenes, could sit down obediently in the chairs below the stage.

King Crimson opened with the triple-drum stampede “Hell Hounds of Krim,” in which the great lover of percussive exotica Pat Mastelotto, the master of precision Gavin Harrison and the all-round Jeremy Stacey, who mostly handled keyboards this evening, squared off in cleverly timed drum cannonades that made for a fiery start to this thoroughly shortened show.

Because of the aforementioned “state of emergency,” the members of King Crimson, under Fripp’s ever-strict gaze, didn’t have much room to maneuver when it came to the selection of pieces, which was drastically trimmed. The long-time favorites came to the fore, while lesser-known but equally excellent songs sadly dropped off the setlist. With the “In the Wake of Poseidon” (1970) classic “Pictures of a City,” the entire seven-piece band, which Bill Rieflin recently left once again, joined “the game.”

The incredible tightness and precision of Fripp’s amazingly disciplined crew were once again breathtaking. Jakko Jakszyk was in even better vocal form than usual and a few times reminded us vocally of the late legend Greg Lake, while his guitar acrobatics nicely complemented Fripp’s mathematically timed guitar phrases and solos, as always. Tony Levin shone once more on bass guitar and Chapman Stick and helped out with backing vocal harmonies. His bass lines were clearly audible all night thanks to very good sound. The one who had the most minor trouble this evening was the ever cheerful saxophonist and flutist Mel Collins, who a few times badly missed the mark with his sax by coming in too early, but you can’t hold that against him. Then again, it’s precisely the addition of his saxophone that richly spiced up some of the classics from this legendary band’s later period. The dark and cynical “Cirkus” from the album “Lizard” (1970) continued the evening of classics, while the post-apocalyptic epic “Epitaph” from the King Crimson debut, which is always a vocally demanding piece but which Jakko handled superbly, was one of the highlights of the whole night. Among the songs that have found their way back into the setlist on the current tour after a long time, we enjoyed “Frame by Frame” and “Neurotica” this evening, with the indispensable “Indiscpline” slipped in between, neatly rounding out a trio of evergreens from the eighties. The lyrics and vocal melodies of all three pieces were adapted to Jakszyk’s vocal timbre and singing approach, which differ considerably from those of his predecessor Adrian Belew. Next came the ethereal ballad “Moonchild,” which, instead of the stretched-out improvisations of the original, featured shorter solo spots from all the band members. “The Court of the Crimson King,” another highlight of the evening, was played entirely in the style of the original, including the closing flute-driven motif. It’s somewhat ironic that Fripp now demands that his band play versions of the standards that, with the exception of the eighties and later material, are in complete harmony with the studio originals, considering his improvisational past, when back in the early seventies he completely transformed some popular songs during live shows. Then came the triple-drum orgy titled “Drumzilla,” when the “three-headed drum monster crawled out of its lair once again” and unleashed some breathtaking drum-and-percussion maneuvers. The thundering “Level Five” from the album “The Power to Believe” (2003) was the newest song of the night from a band that hasn’t recorded a new album since 2003, even though they’ve long had more than enough new studio material for such an undertaking. With the unforgettable “Red” (1974) evergreen “Starless,” which always delivers a one-of-a-kind atmospheric climax, they somewhat predictably closed the main part of this thoroughly shortened set. Most of us had already stood up from our chairs, convinced the concert was over, when Fripp and the gang surprised us and unexpectedly came back out on stage. As a “consolation prize,” the “Crimson Kings” played “21st Century Schizoid Man,” which, despite being their most recognizable piece, they play fairly rarely on the current tour. Hoping for any more encores was naive, since Fripp, whose genuine emotions at the end of the show were once again a complete enigma, was already in a hurry to get under the covers, off to “the land of the little folk.” Rarely performed pieces like “Cat Food,” “Sheltering Sky,” “Elektrik,” “Islands” and “One More Red Nightmare” dropped out of the setlist this evening, while among the evergreens we missed “Easy Money,” “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part II” and “Red” the most. Even though the unpredictable summer weather played a nasty trick on them this time, King Crimson didn’t leave their loyal followers in the middle of Palmanova out to dry, pulling off the shortened show just as it should be done and just as you’d expect from them: technically superior and atmospherically unmatched. The sound was surprisingly good and every instrument was clearly audible throughout, while the prog rock legends, apart from the aforementioned rare Collins sax slip-ups, were the picture of brilliant tightness and discipline. After it had looked like there might be no concert at all and that we’d be driving back to Slovenia without the top-notch live experience only King Crimson can deliver, we can be more than satisfied with what we heard and saw.

author: Peter Podbrežnik
photography: Primož Novak

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Setlist:
1. Hell Hounds of Krim
2. Pictures of a City
3. Cirkus
4. Epitaph
5. Frame by Frame
6. Indiscipline
7. Neurotica
8. Moonchild (with cadenzas)
9. The Court of the Crimson King (with coda)
10. Drumzilla
11. Radical Action II
12. Level Five
13. Starless
—encore—
14. 21st Century Schizoid Man