“You can rehearse until you’re blue in the face, but once you hit the stage, all bets are off”: How King Crimson was reborn at the hands of Steve Vai and Adrian Belew

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2024 Year in Review: The all-star Beat tour brought King Crimson’s music to thousands of eager prog fans

Beat [L-R]: Tony Levine, Steve Vai, Adrian Belew and Danny Carey
(Image credit: Alison Dyer)

2024 Year in Review: Though King Crimson, the highly influential English progressive rock band, are spoken of in the past tense these days, founder Robert Fripp ended up giving his blessing to latter member Adrian Belew for a semi-official celebration of his time in the band.

Exploring the music heard on the group’s ’80s albums – namely Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair – the Beat tour consists of Belew on vocals and guitar, joined by bassist Tony Levin (who played on those albums), Steve Vai and Tool drummer Danny Carey.

“The first show of a tour can be like a gauntlet,” Vai reflected on social media after the opening night. “You can rehearse until you’re blue in the face, but once you hit the stage the lights go out and there’s a live audience eager to be entertained, all bets are off.

“But the band delivered well and we were all relieved to get through a good first show.”

Stay tuned; we might want to revisit this in a future interview…

BEAT / KING CRIMSON, Waiting Man, The Sheltering Sky, Sleepless, Frame by Frame, 9/20/24, Austin, TX - YouTube BEAT / KING CRIMSON, Waiting Man, The Sheltering Sky, Sleepless, Frame by Frame, 9/20/24, Austin, TX - YouTube
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Amit Sharma
Amit Sharma

Amit has been writing for titles like Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Guitar World for over a decade and counts Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Jeff Beck among his primary influences as a guitar player. He's worked for magazines like Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Prog, Record Collector, Planet Rock, Rhythm and Bass Player, as well as newspapers like Metro and The Independent, interviewing everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy to Slash and Jimmy Page, and once even traded solos with a member of Slayer on a track released internationally. As a session guitarist, he's played alongside members of Judas Priest and Uriah Heep in London ensemble Metalworks, as well as handled lead guitars for legends like Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, The Faces) and Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, G3).