BEAT, Live (InsideOutMusic, 2025)

Where to begin?

Fans of King Crimson are well aware of just how definitive the band’s 1981-84 lineup was. Adrian Belew (guitar and vocals), Robert Fripp (guitar), Tony Levin (bass and Chapman Stick), and Bill Bruford (drums) changed the face of music in general and progressive rock in particular.

Trouble is, this lineup was relatively short-lived. Since Crimson’s breakup, two generations of music fans have learned about this group. Alas, they were never given the chance to see them live. Lucky for all of us, a serious wrong has been righted, even if it’s not exactly the way most fans imagined.

Belew has been eager to resurrect the music of eighties Crimson since the fortieth anniversary of its founding. While Levin was onboard for such a reunion, Fripp and Bruford were not. If the music was to live again, an alternate lineup would have to be created.

This is some kind of alternative!

Fripp and Bruford weren’t onboard, but guitarist Steve Vai and drummer Danny Carey (from Tool) most certainly were! The four branded themselves as BEAT, and went about tearing a beautiful hole into eighties-era King Crimson. It’s not the same as the original, but it does a fine job as a stand-in!

Beat Live (my purchase, anyway) is a 3-CD, one blu-ray package featuring the band’s performance in Los Angeles. It was the end of US tour and the band absolutely OWNED the material.

If you know eighties Crim, the setlist holds little to no surprise. But, like jazz, it wasn’t a question of what the band played, but how they went about doing it.

This leads to one of the subtle joys of these performances. The quartet relied on one another to be true to music, but also allowed the opportunity for each player to be themselves wherever possible.

For the most part, Levin and Carey play it straight. Between bass, Chapman Stick, and bass synthesizer, Levin has plenty to do as is. Carey, meanwhile, stays relatively faithful to what Bruford played, though he does allow himself the occasional self-indulgence, particularly during his solo before “Indiscipline.” Make no mistake: these cats know what they’re doing, and they do it well.

Belew is also faithful to his original parts, but he has a terrific time doing it. He gets particularly fired up about playing the Fender Mustang guitar he used back in the eighties to create many of those sounds. Plus, he has fun with making the odd noise here and there and being the natural frontman he is. His lines (heard mostly in the right channel) are as powerful and creative as ever.

It’s Vai who wanders off-script — beautifully — the most often. Fripp’s parts are a real challenge to play. And while Vai can most certainly handle them (heard in the left channel), he also has a little Fripp-approved fun with some of the original riffs. Best of all, he launches into more than a couple of his trademark slinky lead lines on tunes like “LarkS Tongues in Aspic, Part III” and “The Sheltering Sky.” Vai’s creativity — hardly a secret in the Land of Guitar Geeks — is all over his solos. Clearly, he’s being inspired by the music he has loved for forty-.plus years.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the audience is eating it up. The band is feeding off this energy, repeatedly pushing things to the next plane. Belew can be seen and heard smiling broadly and laughing as the band burns. It’s too bad he’s not having any fun up there, or this gig would really be something special (wink, wink)!

The band also lets loose on a fiery rendition of “Red” in tribute to Fripp and Bruford, as the eighties band kept that seventies-era tune alive and well on stage. The room’s paint is peeling away from the walls!

One wonders what this band could do with a batch of new material. But that is highly unlikely. But what’s being done in this collection is more than sufficient.

Belew likes to point out that BEAT was five years in the making before everything came to fruition. It was well worth the wait.

#cirdecsongs

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