King Crimson have released images and a video clip taken from rehearsals for their forthcoming live dates.
Nine photographs have appeared this morning [July 10] on Robert Fripp‘s DGMLive site. You can see them here.
Meanwhile, Fripp has also posted a 5 second clip of the band rehearsing on his Facebook page of drummers Gavin Harrison, Pat Mastelotto and Bill Rieflin which you can watch here. The clip is tagged “Elstree Studios Sunday 8th. June, 2014”.
This line-up – the 8th in the band’s history – is Fripp, Harrison, Rieflin, Mastelotto, bassist Tony Levin, saxophonist Mel Collins and guitarist Jakko Jakszyk.
They are all former Crimson members, except Rieflin and Jakszyk who have been involved on the fringes of Crimson for a few years. Rieflin collaborated with Chris Wong, Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox in a project called The Humans, while Jakszyk played in Jakszyk Fripp & Collins, alongside Robert Fripp and Mel Collins.
On Saturday [June 7], Tony Levin posted on his blog: “We moved to a bigger rehearsal room, and combined the two parts of the band that had been rehearsing separately. Since February, the three drummers have been getting together, and this past week marked the second time I’d come to Jakko’s home studio to rehearse with him — this time joined by Robert and Mel.”
The band have also now announced the entire 17-show run of dates:
September 9 & 10 @ The Egg – Albany, NY
September 12 & 13 @ Kimmel Center – Philadelphia, PA
September 15 & 16 @ Colonial Theatre – Boston, MA
September 18, 19 & 20 @ Best Buy Theater – New York, NY
September 23 @ Barrymore Theatre – Madison, WI
September 25 & 26 @ The Vic Theatre – Chicago, IL
September 30 & October 1 @ Orpheum Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
October 3 & 4 @ Warfield Theater – San Francisco, CA
October 6 @ Moore Theatre – Seattle, WA
Announcing his plans to reform the band last year in Uncut, Robert Fripp said, “King Crimson is returning to active service. We are on-call to be ready for a live performance on September 1, 2014. Seven members. Four English, three American. Three drummers. It’s a different configuration of King Crimson than before. Some are familiar names, maybe more than others.”
Fripp went on to say, “The first performance will take place in either North or South America,” Fripp told Uncut. “There will be rehearsals primarily in England, and the final batch of rehearsals will most likely be in America in August or September 2014. There is a plan to include the UK in the tour dates, but it depends on a number of circumstances. Right now the primary geographical focus is the United States.”