King Crimson were the first garage band I ever heard. That may sound a little odd, let me explain. It was the summer of 1970 and in a break from the never ending summer holiday football match we assembled in Eric’s dads garage. Eric had something he thought we should hear. He carefully thread the reel to reel tape through the heads of the tape machine and hit play. What happened next was to eventually lead 49 years later to the Royal Albert Hall in 2019. Erupting, and I can think of no better word for how I felt at the time, from the speakers was the opening riff of 21st Century Schizoid Man. Eric’s dad hated it so much that he wouldn’t have it played in the house so Eric in his wisdom had copied the album to tape so that he could listen to it in the relative safety of the garage. I was hooked, I’d never heard anything like it, King Crimson immediately became my new favourite band. Unlike many other favourite bands they persisted. There have been times when I haven’t played the the albums very much as others but they’ve always been there and I like to think my listening has evolved along with them.
I have been fortunate to see the current three drummer incarnation several times in recent years. Their three nights at the Royal Albert Hall as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations was too good an opportunity to miss. My dilemma was which of the three nights to choose, in retrospect it should perhaps have been all three, but after much deliberation I chose the middle one. They did not disappoint.
The Royal Albert Hall is such an iconic venue and was once described by someone a lot clever than me as “the nations village hall”. It is truly magnificent inside and it immediately becomes apparent why they chose such such a venue for their only appearances in the UK on this celebratory world tour. A lot of the audience are of a certain age, people that grew up with the band, much as I did, and are still with then fifty years on. That says something but it’s not just the ‘old timers’ that are here, they have attracted many ‘younger’ listeners to their unique brand of what I guess is still called progressive music.
The stage set up is not overly fussy with the there drummers front of stage and the rest of the band in the back line. There is no light show, the stage slighting remains unchanged all evening save for the final section of Starless when the stage becomes bathed in a rich red, dare I say crimson, light.
I don’t propose to review the music, I’ll leave that to others more qualified than I, save to say they were bloody good and played for over two and a half hours with one short intermission. I think I chose well, there were many pieces I love to hear and that seminal first album was almost played in its entirety. Oh and the encore was 21st Century Schizoid Man, the one that started it all off. We have come full circle. Heres to the time round.
Should anyone be interested you can discover what they played here.