Crimson classics howled through the redwood grove surrounding UCSC’s Quarry Amphitheater on the night of October 9, as BEAT launched its fall North American tour. The band, in all respects a supergroup, brings together veterans of King Crimson’s 1980s lineup, Adrian Belew and Tony Levin, with Steve Vai and Terry Bozzio to revisit the music of that mercurial ensemble.
Beasts trumpeted and gulls cried in the open air from Belew’s guitar—his signature sounds on “Elephant Talk” and “Matte Kudasai”—framing opposite ends of King Crimson’s emotional spectrum.
Early in the set, BEAT drew from its namesake Crimson album, Beat, with a rough-and-ready rendition of “Neal and Jack and Me,” and later turned to the title track from Three of a Perfect Pair.
Bozzio’s debut on drums in place of Danny Carey—absent due to commitments with Tool—lived up to the excited anticipation. Teamed with Levin on bass and Chapman Stick, Bozzio locked into Crimson’s shifting time signatures with his usual deft power.
He grabbed the spotlight by leading off a drum duet with Belew as an intro to “Waiting Man,” then attacked the manic drum prelude to “Indiscipline,” bringing his own fury to the controlled chaos crafted by Bill Bruford.
Vai essayed Robert Fripp’s alternately melodic and metronomic guitar lines, adapting the blistering cross-picking of “Frame by Frame”—more than ten notes per second in Fripp’s original recorded performance—to his own shredding techniques.
Bedecked in gunslinger black with a wide-brimmed hat, Vai used the extended soloing opportunity on “The Sheltering Sky” to coax theremin-like wails from his axe, suspending it in the air by the whammy bar alone while waving his free hand like a magician practicing levitation.
On “Sleepless,” Levin’s Funk Fingers—miniature string-thumping drumsticks strapped to his fingers—made his bass playing as entertaining to watch as to hear, and a wonderfully odd sight for the uninitiated.
The chants and urban paranoia of “Thela Hun Ginjeet” echoed through the wind-tossed branches, closing out a two-song encore.
New to the band’s repertoire on this tour were “Walking on Air,” “People” and “Dinosaur,” along with a real treat to open the encore: a cover of Frank Zappa’s “City of Tiny Lites.”
Three of the four BEAT members are Zappa alumni; Tony Levin has merely played with everyone else.
BEAT’s North American tour continues through December 3. Dates and tickets at beat-official.com/tour.
Read our interview with Adrian Belew on BEAT and the enduring power of King Crimson.
