King Crimson 2017 Tour pt2

Austin Friends & Family Show

What other bands call a dress rehearsal, we call a Friends & Family show. For each tour leg we try to book a full private show in the same venue we’ll start in, to be sure the sound, the playing, and everything else is working well.

So, in preparation for tomorrow’s official first show, tonight was the F&F show. And it had a lot of Crimson firsts!

The photo above has 9 Crims raising their hands just before we go on - though Bill Rieflin is just here through the week, showing his parts to Chris Gibson, who’ll play the rest of the tour leg, it’s great having them both kick it off backstage.

This is the venue name... no comment necessary!
And it's a huge hall. Good thing we have quite a few friends in town to fill up some seats.
Backstage, the emblem of the U. of Texas... I notice it says "Disciplina" ... how interesting...
Discipline is back in the set (first time this century, I believe). And Moonchild... don't think Crimson has ever performed that before.
Backstage, we're getting back into the hang of wearing suits
Going through some old stuff at home I came across this tie

It’s got the band name on it, and was one of the merch items on our Japan tour back in 1984. Probably the first time I’ve worn it!

Ready to go on

For those who haven’t seen a Crimson show in the last few years, we ask the audience not to take pictures or videos during the show – so I need to behave the same! I’ll take some pictures of the audience at the end of the show, which is their cue that they can take theirs.

Meanwhile, there is the intermission backstage.

And, at the end... A few hundred people don't fill up this venue very much, but we were very glad to have them

And, back in the dressing room, I know now why I hadn’t worn this tie before. It’s really short!

Seen aftershow: a nice gentleman who'd made a t-shirt with my song title on it
and a wonderful group of our Camping family

Great fun tonight, and a good warmup for the shows to come.

More soon.