Our second show in Poznan was another special one, and revealing to the fans more of the repertoire we’ll be tackling on the tour.
I had so many pictures of the venue at yesterday’s show, today I just focussed on some of the wonderful folks in this production.
(Irrelevent Note: I’ve heard lots of folks mis-pronounce Michele’s Italian name… I say Me Kay Lay - and maybe leave off the last y . I’m no expert, but it’s certainly not Michelle!)
(After 26 years working together, I’d guess Michele doesn’t mind much however I pronounce his name!)
(Irrelevant note: I met Gavin back in 1992, the same time I met Michele, as we all toured Italy with Claudio Baglioni. We never imagined that we’d be touring together, in King Crimson, so many years later.)
(Irrelevant note: I couldn’t resist capturing Biff in this daily chore, just so I could name the shot:
Biff Buffs the Backline Baffle).
(Irrelevant note: I received a very nice gift from Toyah and Robert - a pair of cufflinks. Remember those? It sparked a memory for me of something of a cufflink nightmare:
At about 16 years old, I performed a bass concerto with the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra at a Boston University concert. (Also on the program, the Mozart Clarinet Concerto by our first clarinetist, John Adams, a great player who later became a deservedly renowned composer.)
I’d practiced a great deal for it, and had no worries. But I had not practiced with cufflinks on. On the night, soon after the piece began, I reached a note which put my left hand at the shoulder of the bass, and, ‘whap whap whap’, the cufflinks made a gunshot sound banging against the instrument as I did my vibrato. In those days my vibrato was an uncontrolled element, and as I got nervous about it, the speed increased. I felt the audience waiting for each high E as I, knowing the piece is in Bminor and there a lot of high E’s… I got increasingly nervous and the gunshots became machine gun blasts.
It wasn’t my finest moment, though it was one of my first lessons in, ‘what could go wrong in a concert probably will’. A lesson that still resonates - yes, even with King Crimson.)
It’s been a wonderful stand here in Poznan. We’ll all hope to return one day.
Now it’s off to Krakow, where we’ll have three concerts.
More soon.