If you have seen The Blues Brothers (and if you haven’t, why not?), you know the line: “We’re putting the band back together!”
The prospect is exciting, but, sorry Elwood and Jake, easier said than done. Such is the case with King Crimson. When the idea of reuniting the Crimson lineup of 1981-1984 was floated, the fact the founder and guitarist Robert Fripp was going to opt out was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Hey, he’s busy enjoying his life and making YouTube videos like this with his wife Toyah Willcocks. (Oh, and this one on April Fool’s Day.) Who would want to leave this scene of domestic bliss?
Crimson fans can rejoice, however, because Fripp has given his blessing for former bandmate Adrian Belew (guitar, vocals) to go out on the road under the name BEAT and perform music from the albums Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair. The band will perform on Saturday, September 21, at the Bayou Music Center.
But with Fripp and retired Crimson drummer Bill Bruford out of the picture, new collaborators were needed to assume those mantles. Enter guitarist Steve Vai (solo, Frank Zappa, David Lee Roth) and drummer Danny Carey (Tool). Sort of a prog-rock Avengers, a team of aces designed to bring back the glory of instrumental virtuosity in odd time signatures.
Belew says that Vai was really the only choice to occupy the other guitar chair in BEAT. “The first call I made was to Steve Vai, because I had read that Steve was a big fan of that music and what Robert had done on those records, and I thought that he was probably one of the only guys in the world who might be able to do that. He surprised me by being extremely excited.”
Belew also contacted bassist extraordinaire Tony Levin, who was part of the ‘80s Crimson lineup. “Tony was all for it,” Belew says, “so when all that was [settled], the drummer that I wanted from the beginning was Danny Carey. I’ve known him for many years, and I know that he was heavily influenced by those records. He even said they changed his whole life, and he knows more about Bill Bruford and his playing than anyone I know. There you go. We had it.”
So what was Vai’s reaction when he was approached by Belew regarding the BEAT project? “Well, it was a surprise and a delight,” Vai says. “I’ve loved that music, those three Crimson records from the ‘80s, these were like monolithic records. The first thing I thought was, ‘How does Robert feel about this?’ Because I didn’t know the dynamics, and I didn’t want to get into anything that [wasn’t] smooth sailing. But I was immediately assured that Robert was enthusiastic. He supported it, and he also suggested the name.”
Fripp’s guitar parts on the Crimson records in question are, well, kind of tricky. Difficult even for a virtuoso musician like Vai. “I thought, ‘Well, I’d better go listen to the music to see if it was something I could navigate,” he says, “because Robert is quite the specialist, you know. I had heard the music, I knew the music, but I hadn’t looked under the hood. So I took another listen, and I thought, ‘Yeah, at my age, I could still get this.’
“And I started listening to the music, and I realized just how specialized Robert’s guitar playing, his technique, is. What’s nice is, the guitar parts, as difficult as they are, are beautiful. The most challenging thing about his part is that they are relentless. They just don’t let up.”
“Both Steve Vai and I joke about this. We graduated from the School of Zappa. And it’s a school that teaches you consistency, being on time, playing correctly.”
Vai explains that, while he is playing Fripp’s guitar parts, he is injecting his own style and musicality into the proceedings. “I had to re-finagle some of the stuff so that it works in a Vai context, but I’m doing my best to respect all the notes, but still perform them a little differently.”
It is interesting to note that both Belew and Vai played with Frank Zappa, though not in the same band. I asked Belew if that experience helped prepare him for Crimson. “Frank prepared me, basically, for everything,” Belew says. “Working with him, for me, being self-taught, coming from playing Top 40 music most of my life, it was a giant education. Both Steve Vai and I joke about this. We graduated from the School of Zappa. And it’s a school that teaches you consistency, being on time, playing correctly. It sort of wipes away everything but the real bare bones. OK, here’s how you tour, here’s what you have to do to make a record, here’s what you have to do to make a film and so forth. That education was more about the whole picture than the musical picture.
“But Frank also prepared me in the sense that it was the first time I was taught to play in odd time signatures. Now, because of my background as a drummer, it wasn’t terribly difficult for me. He just explained it in ways that I understood. And that really meant a lot toward the day that I got into King Crimson, because suddenly I was the songwriter, singer and guitar player who had to figure out how to do things in different time signatures and write them in different time signatures. So without Frank’s preparation for that, I think I would have had a much harder time being in King Crimson in those roles.”
Fan reaction to BEAT has been uniformly positive, creating a rush for tickets when they went on sale. “I knew that it was music that should be brought to life again, and that it had been a long time, and that there were people who had been waiting and waiting for something like that. I knew there was a pent-up need for it,” Belew says. “The thing is, I didn’t realize just how explosive it would be once we put it in the hands of a band like this. From the view of the audience, young and old people who never saw it and people who were there, the response has just been incredible.”
Consequently, Belew is optimistic about hitting the road. “I feel that there’s such a great vibe around this, kind of an aura around it, that makes me feel like this is going to be so great.”
BEAT will perform at the Bayou Music Center, 520 Texas, on Saturday, September 21, at 8 p.m. For more information, call 713-230-1666 or visit LiveNation.com. $64.45 (including fees) and up.
For more about BEAT, visit beat-tour.com.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
