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September 24, 2005
Stupid Curfew: Adrian Belew at Nightfall review
"See you next year!"
That was all Adrian Belew could say Friday night as his monstrously wonderful power trio launched into their last tune, a crowd thumping version of King Crimson's "Thela Hun Ginjeet" just before being forced off the Nightfall stage at 9:30 p.m. The band played for 90 minutes, garnering passionate audience response throughout, and increasingly rapturous audience response towards the end of the show, sparked by funky, danceable(?!?) versions "Thela" and two other Crimson tunes, "Frame By Frame" and "Three Of A Perfect Pair," after the latter of which Belew congratulated the crowd: "You just danced in 7/8!"
Upon leaving the stage, Belew and the rest of the trio -- the funny, biker-styled bassist, Mike Gallaher, and the Tony Levin lookalike (with pecs) drummer, Mike Hodges -- stepped out onto a balcony above the still-begging-for-more crowd and waved down to them with a happy-yet-frustrated "sorry, but they just won't let us play anymore" look on their faces.
Stupid Curfew.
The set featured mostly new material, including a version of "Walk Around The World" that should have made all guitarists in attendance want to go home and practice. Belew's voice was crystal throughout, too, proving the perfect counterpoint to the band's heavy, busy bag of musical tricks.
Due to Belew's lengthy tenure in King Crimson, most of the older tunes performed Friday were seeing, sadly, one of their first solo Belew tours or, in the case of Op Zop Too Wah's "All Her Love Is Mine" and "Of Bow And Drum," their very first Belew tour. The band took advantage of this new opportunity to tweak many of the songs' arrangements, most notably on Here's "Color Futurevision," which was only further enhanced from its original brilliance with the addition of some tag team-tight instrumental breaks reminiscent of the tune, "Success," by Belew's other other band, The Bears.
Seeing an artist like Adrian Belew at a venue like Miller Plaza as part of a free concert series like Nightfall is one of the few ways remaining for people to stumble upon musicians whom they would not otherwise either venture out to see or ever know that they might like. It's a shame, but if this show wasn't free -- or part of some package deal -- the crowd would likely have been much smaller in our adventure-challenged city. (See the California Guitar Trio's appearance at Riverbend vs. their appearance at Rhythm and Brews, for example.)
This viewpoint was confirmed as I watched both a rather tall African-American gentleman (let's face it, black folks aren't the biggest prog rock fans) and a group of adorable little white girls dance to music they both had no idea that some in the crowd would say they really weren't supposed to be dancing to -- at a show that none of them were likely to attend othwerwise.
It's simple: good music transcends everything but the moment. You just gotta get to the good music...
Thank you for the good music, Mr. Belew. See you in Atlanta.
(Thanks to Melissa, Brian, Rebecca, Amber and Joe for joining a very gleeful me for the festivities.)
Setlist:
Writing on the Wall (from Side One)
Dinosaur (from Thrak)
Ampersand (from Side One)
Young Lions (from Young Lions)
Beat Box Guitar (from Side One)
Matchless Man (from Side One)
Madness (from Side One)
Walk Around The World (from Side One)
All Her Love Is Mine (from Op Zop Too Wah)
Of Bow And Drum (from Op Zop Too Wah)
Big Electric Cat (from Lone Rhino)
Frame By Frame (from Discipline)
Color Futurevision (from Here)
Three Of A Perfect Pair (from Three Of A Perfect Pair)
Thela Hun Ginjeet (from Discipline)
| By colrus | 01:41 AM
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