Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists

It's nice to be reminded that I live in a cool town: with minimal planning, I bailed out of work, wandered over to the Somerville Theater (Davis Square, a short walk from my office), bought tickets at the box office, and caught a concert--Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists. I doubt this will matter to most of you non-prog-rock-geeks out there, but Fripp is the heart and soul of King Crimson (as well as the only constant member, over its 30+ year history). Fripp started a guitar school known as Guitar Craft back in 1985, and as the website puts it, The League of Crafty Guitarists [is] the performance wing of Guitar Craft. Huh... that language sounds an awful lot like describing Sinn Fein's relation to the IRA.

Anyway, the group itself is ten guitarists (from countries all over the world) plus Fripp, playing in a large circle on stage. They were very entertaining both to watch, as well as to hear--they would have interludes where they would "pass" notes from one end of the stage to the other and back. The music itself was wonderfully dense, sounding at times a bit like Steve Reich, with a throbbing ostinato minimalism. The sound of ten guitars together was pretty neat--not something I'm used to.

One odd habit of Fripp is that he stays pathologically (perhaps amusingly) away from the spotlight. When I saw him play with King Crimson a few years ago, he was set up in a darkened corner of the stage, so you could barely see him, while the others were in full view. At this concert, he walked onto stage, bowed to the applauding audience, and then took a seat completely hidden behind an amp stack. I think that he has some deeply seated feelings about performance being about the music rather than showmanship or appearance, but I'm too lazy to try to dig up a reference.

Some of the recognizable tunes from the concert were the Beatles "Flying" (from Magical Mystery Tour), the Mission: Impossible Theme, and the big crowdpleaser for the audience, King Crimson's "VROOOM."

Grr... looking for an online review for other comments, but haven't found one yet.