FraKctured - live performances - audient reports

10/11/00 - Paramount Theater / Asbury Park, NJ

From Robert Fripp's diary at DGM
Friday 10th. November, 2000

23.28
The Berkeley Cataract Hotel, Asbury Park.

"That was a weird gig". Thus sprached our drummer as we left the stage for the final time. The physical construction of the venue served the aim of alienating audience & performer by placing an unused orchestra pit between them. Onstage, there was little sense of the audience, enveloped by darkness. When the Paramount was refurbished, Row E became Row C. So, originally, there was a greater proximity. Were I to have been in the audience, I would have felt alienated from the performer.

The audience was small and, towards the end, most supportive. During "Frakctured" I experienced an alarming emptiness at the centre, as if violation were underway, and never fully recovered from this. Even "good" performances suffer violation, as the recent Guestbook posting commenting on the last Paris show suggests. (As an aside, that particular poster wonders why Crimson doesn't play more often in France, and by extension Europe. The poster answers their question within their posting without (at least the appearance of) realising it).

By "Fraktured" the show was leaking like a sieve with some recovery at the end during the encores. Alternatively & otherwise, from the guitarist's stool in Asbury Park, the show began well, was interrupted by the official photographer, lost something in the middle, and recovered during the encores. Most of the New Jersey Guitar Circle were there.

From Trey Gunn's diary at www.treygunn.com

November 10, 2000 Paramount Theater / Asbury Park, NJ

Well, well, Asbury Park. Not the most bleak place on the planet, but this small stretch of coast here is terribly desolate and aged feeling. The performance wasn't well attended (the gig was added at the very last minute), but the audience was very supportive. However, it was a very weird show. It felt like no matter what we did everything seemed quite arbitrary, and had no real effect.

Until the encores. Then the show began to come to life. I wish we had just gone out and played five pieces and then began doing the encores.

 

Click here to see photos of this performance.