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Looper's Delight
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Hi Folks! I just got home a little while ago and thought I'd pontificate while the memory was still fresh. :) >>>>P.S. That being say, the P2 song directly after the intermission was >>>>*very* cool, erie, and sublime. How in the heck was Gunn triggering those >>>>vocal samples? IMO, this song hinted at what this group of musicians are >>>>capable of. The fact, for a start, that this was also true of the HOB show tonight is indicative that perhaps it's not ALL improvisation. God forbid, could there be a structure to it? The sound of course is difficult to guage to the side of the stage, but from the left bar I had a great view of RF, who was quite well-lit, and mixed in well. The bass notes, though, were strictly pants-and-bar-rattling, and were toned enough not to be a rolling rumble. Trey Gunn's playing appeared to be expending the most energy visually, second place going to Adrian Belew's quite capable drumming, third, of course, goes to the Smooth Unflappable One playing guitar. On the basis of what people had already complained about, I decided to enter this as a blank page, much as I had the HOB shows that RF put on a few years ago for the 1999 release. I'd not even heard "The First Day", nor "1999", so I had absolutely no idea going in, and was delighted. To each his own, I suppose some of you are saying. I was told flat out by one fellow there that he "hoped there weren't any Soundscapes, 'cause he didn't come to hear THAT". This of course, while Soundscapes - not Live, I'm fairly sure! - were playing over the PA. >The consensus of the recent postings regarding this show seems to have >been that there was one really magical moment during the evening, and the >other parts were of less interest. I disagree on most levels of the above statement as far as tonights show was concerned; the only parts that could border on possible tedium were broken up by another player's work. I had the impression at times that a game of musical catch was occurring, but not in the serial sense. I'm sure this makes a great deal of sense to everyone, perhaps as much as tonight's performance was to some. Undoubtedly the "usual" HOB-Crimson-Fripp crown was there... In the beginning you could see the ones who were perhaps looking too hard for the thing to satisfy them, their faces a cross between being spaced-looking, and flat-out confusion. The people sporting these faces, alas, were not visible during the second part of the show. I came away thinking of it all as "Juju Space Jazz" Meets Adrian and Trey, somehow. It was evident that all three of them had a good time. RF did a kind of shading his eyes and looking out over the crowd through the lights, which, when he did it a second time, brought some level of a surge of cheers from the crowd. So (apparently) he did it again, eliciting a larger cheer. A parallel I can draw is to Eno/Byrne's "My Life In The Bush With Ghosts", which took some number of listenings before I could appreciate it fully. When I got there, I loved the album (and I've got one of the ones with "Kuran" on it!), and it hasn't disappointed me yet. I can say I hope they don't do nothing BUT this stuff. I had the distinct impression that, in these two sets of 3 people touring in different parts of the world, several things are happening beyond the obvious.... 1. We're seeing more individual efforts in focus, as opposed to in conjunction with 5 others. 2. There is probably a good amount of writing going on between these shows. It would be interesting to see how much variation may or may not exist between an array of shows. Anyone? Larry? 3. None of us know what the hell is really going on anyway, so perhaps we should just sit back and wait to assess the entire body of work when they're finished, and enjoy the effort-in-progress. [putting on flame-repellent armor] Stephen Goodman * It's... The Loop Of The Week! EarthLight Studios * http://www.earthlight.net/Studios