FraKctured

June 4, 2000 -- Munich, Germany / Cirkus Krone

Well, if there was ever an architectural 'wonder' for the likes of King Crimson then this was it. Not for the sound of it, because that was quite crappy. But for the sheer bizareness and Crimson accents. Firstly, the Cirkus Krone was a real circus arena. It is a round room with a dome. It has wooden bleaches and chandeliers everywhere. There is also quite a strong 'clown' vibe, although you don't see any actual clowns. The are, however, these giant blue crowns and giant signs that say "KC" all over the place. Well the monograms probably read "CK" for Cirkus Krone, but we don't really care: to us they say "KC."

It was a very good audience tonight. Extremely supportive and really with us. This was amazing considering how bad the sound was. It wasn't as bad as last night in Stuttgard, but it was still pretty crappy. However, the audience really redeemed it, tonight.

I made a joke backstage about how the guitar players still have to worry about pitch, whereas the bass player doesn't. This is because I couldn't 'hear' the difference between playing the right notes and playing the wrong ones at sound check. (What a bizarre musical life I led where this is the state of affairs for a performance!) I meant it as a joke, but once we hit the Larks' IV Coda, humor became reality. I got lost in these very wicked chord changes and I couldn't hear the difference. At one point I was minor third off, another point a whole step. And at one point I was a half step off. But, it didn't sound any different to me at all. It should be spectacular when BootlegTV releases this show, and you will be able to very, very clearly hear how off I was.

There were some very hot moments in the show tonight: Siezure; Sex; Cage; and FraKCtured were real high points for me. Heroes was a complete limp, downer tonight. I don't know if the tempo was too slow, or if Sex was so hot just before it.

It turns out that the Beatles played here, at the Cirkus Krone, for a whole week.