Sheltering Sky - Beat (King Crimson) - 09/22/2024 - Majestic Theater, Dallas, TX

Contemporary Old West guy, B.F. Biles has taken a couple of weeks off to work on some other things and enjoy life. I had the pleasure of attending a concert Sunday evening.
Beat, Adrian Belew, Steve Vai, Danny Carey, and Tony Levin, bill themselves as a King Crimson cover band. In this case, the billing doesn't fit the bill. I was fortunate enough to see their show at the Majestic Theater on Sunday, September 9, 2024.
If you're a fan of prog rock, I can only say, get your tickets if you can. These guys played an outstanding show.
From the very first notes, I found the experience delightful. The sound engineers did a great job of finding the sweet spot between sonically pleasing and so loud and thudding you feel like you're having a coronary. Sound mixers take note. We don't need to feel the sound in the pit of our gut for it to be loud. It's nice to hear something other than the thud of the bass drum and bass guitar.
Adrian Belew, ostensibly the front man, and main vocalist, did an outstanding job, offering interesting commentary and performing the songs with a lot of charm and panache. Belew underates his own guitar playing which is often sonically inventive, technically challenging, and visually as well as sonically engaging.
Steve Vai - What can you say. This guy can apparently play anything. Before the concert I wondered if Vai could compete with the masterful Robert Fripp (who Vai replaces) in terms of finding the array of sonic voices that Fripp uses, but in terms of playing the range of harmonically challenging scales and chords that Fripp uses. Vai proved not only up to the task, but left me wondering if the band might be better off with Vai. Fripp can seem a little staid in his playing, though I am certainly not denigrating his work either. Steve Vai proved to be a worthy replacement and brought his shredding pyrotechnic playing to the table as well. I think you see that on full display in this song.
Tony Levin - Levin is one of the finest bassists to ever play rock music. At 78, he is also one of the most prolific players out there and continues to record and tour religiously. His bass and Chapman Stick playing appears on literally hundred of records. He has recorded with Paul Simon, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Stevie Nicks, and a host of others. He was ranked second on the list of most underated bass players behind John Paul Jones. To industry insiders, Levin is probably one of, if not the greatest bass player of the genre. If you need something technically challenging played for your record, Levin is high on the list. His playing here is stellar as always.
Danny Carey - There are no weak spots in this band. As fans of Progressive Metal know, Danny Carey is the drummer for the rock band Tool. His skills are unparalleled and he handles the range of shifting time signatures and tonal landscapes found in King Crimson's music with ease.
The song Sheltering Sky, featured in this video, is meant to evoke the open landscapes and vast skies found in Northern Africa. The song takes its title from a novel of the same name by writer Paul Bowles. The book tells the story of a pair of American Travelers who find themselves lost, both spiritually and physically, in a strange land. The song has a distinctive African feel with drumming that evokes African Slit Drums and tonalities that range from natural minor, double harmonic minor, and Locrian modal scales.
If you like the video, I invite you to subscribe to my channel. This sort of content is a departure from the normal Old West content I feature here, but from time to time I do post footage from progressive rock concerts I attend now and then.
Hope to see you again soon on the Contemporary Old West Channel with B.F. Biles

[@oohremasters4981]

Thanks for the video! Really nice. If you share more I'd appreciate

[@TheStevelargent]

It was a great show, I had tons of fun.!