Beat, the supergroup bringing together King Crimson alumni Adrian Belew on guitar and vocals and Tony Levin on bass, alongside guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and Danny Carey of Tool on drums, have finally announced their long awaited European tour.
The project was formed to keep the nineteen eighties King Crimson repertoire alive and was personally endorsed by Robert Fripp himself. Fripp even named the band and suggested Vai for the role, convinced he was the only guitarist capable of doing justice to the intricate counterpoint originally shared between Fripp and Belew. Praise does not come much higher than that.
That era of King Crimson produced three landmark albums, Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair, before the group dissolved and eventually reemerged in a radically different configuration known among devoted listeners as the Double Trio. That, however, is another chapter altogether.
Beat toured the United States and South America last year, a run that resulted in the striking live album and concert film Beat Live!. Rather than simply recreating the original material, the performances inject a distinctly modern intensity into the music, reframing it through the lens of four musicians operating at the peak of their powers.
The nineteen eighties incarnation of King Crimson was a shock to the system for progressive rock audiences, folding new wave, post punk, Balinese gamelan and African polyrhythms into a leaner and more direct framework. The result was music that balanced rigorous complexity with immediacy, driven in large part by the breathtaking interlocking guitar work of Fripp and Belew, all in service of songs that remained strangely memorable and even catchy.
Beat will bring this repertoire to the Olympia in Paris on June 10, returning to the very venue where King Crimson last played in the city, albeit then in a very different and much larger form known by fans as the eight-headed Beast. Which is yet another chapter in the venerable band's convoluted career!
