Living Proof

Some bands only really make sense when you hear them live. King Crimson have provided the archetypal example of this truism since their emergence in the late sixties. The odd thing is that, given the technology for capturing live performance which now exists, that position has been, in a sense, compromised.

Or that's what I was thinking early this evening watching and listening to the Belew/Fripp/Gunn/Mastelotto version of Crimso in a 2003 concert available on the Eyes Wide Open DVD. Much as I was enjoying the show I felt oddly uncomfortable as a result of my familiarity with the concert, having now watched it some six or seven times. The novelty of first exposure has worn off and a dangerous edge has been lost. Actually 'novelty' is the wrong word - somehow inadequate to do justice to the sense of creativity in action that the first viewing involved.

It's an interesting thought that the recording of music we now take for granted as being almost part of the nature of the listening experience is a relatively recent phenomenon in human history. Has the accessibility of music changed what music is? I think it has changed the way we listen - and changed it for the worse. Being there when music is being made, and being actually created, is a remarkable experience, but less and less accessible in our world.