Here at Steve Vai’s studio, running the material in a smaller setting before we move to production rehearsals.

For those not familiar with the Beat Tour, this will be Adrian Belew, Steve Vai, Danny Carey and me, playing music of the 80s King Crimson in a 65 concert tour around the U.S. and Canada.

(By “around” I mean we’ll be doing two loops, by tour bus, around the country over 3 months… I’m thinking there will be lots of material for interesting Road Diary updates and photos!)

Here at Steve’s studio, of course the wall of guitars is extraordinary

Including some things you just can’t unsee!

Here’s Danny, who’s kind of squeezed into the end of the room, with a small fraction of his full drum kit.

Along with a couple of us vintage guys(!) there’s quite a bit of vintage gear being used, as we harken back to the 80s…

For me, going through the material from the 80s has been surprising. I forgot how much I’d chosen to play the Stick over the bass, and there were some pieces with cross time signatures that are proving pretty challenging to get back under my fingers. But I can just remind myself that the heavy lifting here is being done by Danny and Steve, who are doing an amazing job with the material.

And, yeah, everything doesn’t always run smoothly…

Soon, we’ll move to production rehearsals, set up the gear again, sort out monitors and front of house sound, and practice practice practice!