Back in 2014 King Crimson announced that they had reformed and would be touring for the first time since 2008. This was a pretty huge deal at the time for a number of reasons.
One reason was that the 2008 run of shows was very short lived. They only played about ten shows in four cities (Nashville, Chicago, Glenside PA and NYC). I was lucky enough to attend one of the Chicago shows.
Another reason was it was a completely new lineup. There would be three drummers acting as a front-line for the band (Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison and Bill Rieflin) along with Mel Collins (Sax and Flute… appearing in the group for the first time since 1974), Tony Levin (bass), Jakko Jakszyk (guitar and vocals) and, of course, Robert Fripp (guitar). This would be the first King Crimson lineup without front man Adrian Belew since 1981. Obviously this was a pretty big shakeup.
How did this lineup come to be? Well, in 2011 a King Crimson side project (what Robert Fripp called a “Projekct”) released a studio album called A Scarcity of Miracles. The band was billed as Jakszyk, Fripp and Collins but Levin and Harrison also appeared on the album. Here is the title track from that record:
This was the embryo that eventually lead to the formation of the full King Crimson lineup.
Another reason why the 2014 tour was going to be unique was Fripp announced they were going to play a bunch of songs that haven’t been played by the group since the early 1970s: Namely songs from the albums In The Wake of Poseidon and Islands.
I couldn’t be more excited about all this! Keep in mind that in 2014 we had no way of knowing this would lead to a seven year run of shows with mostly the same lineup. I jumped at the chance to attend one of these shows since I wasn’t sure if it was going to last. I went to the 2nd night of the three shows they performed at the Best Buy Theater in New York City. Songs from those shows have just been released on a new live album 2014 NYC which is today’s pick!
After the show I attended Tony Levin snapped a photo from the stage of the crowd. Here is that photo…I have circled me, about 5 rows from the stage.
Robert Fripp has long been known to crack down pretty heavily on photos, videos and recordings of his concerts. While he did keep the policy mostly enforced he did loosen his guard a little bit with members of the band and some of their behind the scenes videos.
For example, here is a video Pat Mastelotto recorded during soundcheck of them performing “A Scarcity of Miracles”:
They also recorded some of their rehearsals before the tour. Here is an example of that focusing on the drummers:
One of the other things that King Crimson started doing on this tour was release tour boxes. The 2014 version of the tour box included recordings of some of their rehearsals along with a smattering of material from a bunch of earlier eras of the band. Each tour since then they released a new box many of them including live recordings from the new group. They are worth tracking down for huge Crimson fanatics like me (I have them all).
So how did the shows sound? In a single word: incredible! I was completely blown away by the concert I attended and everyone around me was equally floored by what we witnessed. 2014 NYC is an accurate document of those shows. It brought back some good memories from me but I suspect it is also great for those who didn’t attend to hear what they missed.
They performed two songs form Scarcity of Miracles at the show. The title track and “The Light of Day”:
They also performed more recent songs from the King Crimson songbook like “The ConstruKction of Light” and “Level Five”. The 3 drummer lineup really took these very complex compositions to new heights! Everybody sounds in fine form, especially Fripp’s guitar playing. Not bad for someone who was pushing 70 years old at the time!
While all this was great, like I previously mentioned the big draw was the performances of the material that had not been played in over 40 years. “Pictures of a City” from In The Wake of Poseidon is a fine example:
“The Sailor’s Tale” from Islands is especially ferocious. I couldn’t believe they were able to pull this off:
Perhaps my all-time favorite King Crimson song is “Starless” off of the album Red. While its hard to top versions of the song with John Wetton singing, the performances by the new group came pretty close to the mark:
On subsequent tours, King Crimson wrote some new songs that they performed like “Radical Action (to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind)” and “Meltdown” but at the time the only new material were compositions that were only performed by the drummers…“The Hellhounds of Krim” and “Banshee Legs Bell Hassle”:
The entire 2014 NYC live album is worth hearing. Its basically two hours of nothing but highlights. For the fanatics like myself it is just an appetizer: Supposedly King Crimson is releasing a two Blu-Ray set of all of the shows of the 2014 tour. For the more casual fan 2014 NYC is something you still need to hear.
