[.ca] King Crimson - Eyes Wide Open (2DVD)

No OVERDUBS PRESENT:
i am an experienced guitarist of many years and record with professional equipment;therfore i am familiar with many guitar effects and a lot of the type of things crimson uses. i watched this very closely several times to see what the other review was refering to as overdubbed guitar solos of adrian, and i am confident that i have seen none. what i THINK the reviewer might be refering to are a few parts where adrian uses a reversing effect, in which everything you play is held in a processor's memory and reversed, then played a few miliseconds later. so you have to play a little bit ahead of the time signature, then what the viewer hears is a few seconds behind what your hands are doing. it takes a lot of skill to use this effect properly. this is not a trick or overdoub. it is a very common studio technique that is not often used live. i saw no evidence of any use of overdubbing. everything heard appeared by my experience to be played at the moment by one of the musicians on stage. i think this is an excellent dvd for any crimson fans and is fabulous material. they are vastly beyond most musicians in many ways, least of which being skill. i dont mean to contradict the other reviewer, but i am confident of what i say and i just wanted to offer my observation to others who might be deterred from this dvd because of such a thing. blessings, and enjoy =)

Really A Good Buy (2 DVDs):
It's pretty cool to actually see these guys playing. This is my first Krim DVD though I have loads of KC CDs. These guys aren't as showy as other bands in performance (Robert Fripp sits on a stool the entire time and he manages to play without a big spotlight on him for both DVDs), though Trey Gunn does some flashy stuff. The camera is mostly on Belew for the footage and while he is the front man for the group I would have liked to see a wider perspective. The performances are top notch. Mostly what's covered is material from Power To Believe and ConstruKction of Light plus some songs from THRAK. The song Three of a Perfect Pair is done solo by Belew like on Heavy ConstruKction with an acoustic guitar. I would have liked to see a performance of Red, FraKctured (or Fracture), and 21st Century Schizoid Man, but they didn't cover that stuff here. They do cover the Bowie/Eno song Heroes and they play it awesomely, though it is so strange to hear an upbeat Heroes so shortly after the scary and dark Deception of the Thrush. An interesting feature: according to the booklet, because King Crimson is a band that plays differently with each concert, a DVD professing to document this band ought to play differently each time you watch it. Consequently, on the parts where they would improvise a certain song, there are actually a few different versions of those parts that your DVD player chooses randomly each time you watch it. I'm not saying this is an overdub from studio material. It's several different clips of video and audio from different shows, spliced together fairly seamlessly. Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.

Incredible:
I would have to say that, without a doubt, I am a much bigger fan of Crimso's early stuff, but this dvd really shows the great musicianship that still exists in the band today. With Robert Fripp's unconventioanl and astonishing guitar playing, Adrian Belew's great vocal and guitar skills, Trey Gunn's phenominal weird-ass guitars and basses, and Pat Mastelotto's phenominal, inspirational mix of flawless electronic and acoustic drumming, this dvd is truly one of a kind. This dvd has a ton of music on it. If you're into the old prog rock or even electronic music, buy this dvd. If you want to see good musicians play good music, buy this dvd. Its just amazing to see King Crimson plays music still today as they were almost 40 years ago. This is one not to miss.

I'll tell you Why:
I gave this DVD a 3 star because , i really liked there old staff, like: Walking on air, the court of the Crimson king , One more red nightmare and starless but , i am not a big fan of the new stuff. Now, if it was any other artist i would have givin him a 0, but , since this is the one and only King Crimson , i gave him 3. This DVD contains all of his new stuff like: level five, The Worlds My Oyster Soup kitchen Floor Wax Wax Museam and Dangerous Curves. I am not into that. When i buoght this i was not really happy, all the songs sound the same, but, never the less i still gave him 3 stars.

Another great snapshot in the family album:
Since my favorite band did not see fit to come to Texas in this incarnation (even though two of its present members have strong roots here), I had hoped and prayed that King Crimson would release something like "Eyes Wide Open". I saw them when they came through on the absolutely mesmerizing "THRaK" tour, and I felt like "Deja Vrooom" captured that performance in a very convincing fashion. Although the production quality of "Eyes Wide Open" may not be as high as that of "Deja Vrooom" if it captures a fraction of what this version of King Crimson is capable of, this version is easily the most convincing since the '81-'84 "Discipline" line-up. It might even be more consistent. "Eyes Wide Open" is a two-disc set of two separate performances, one from the "Power to Believe" tour (Japan, 2003), and the other from the ConstruKCtion of Light" tour (England, 2000). Although I feel like the material on "The Power to Believe" is overall a bit stronger than "The ConstruKCtion of Light", the 2000 performance might be a bit more compelling than 2003. The first thing that you will notice is Adrian. The actual time between Disc 2 and Disc 1 is three years, but by watching him you would think ten years had passed. I know that Crimson is not concerned with their image, but I have some genuine concern about Adrian's health. He goes from looking like somebody's eccentric dad, to looking like the crazy old man next door, and there is a noticeable difference in the energy level of the performances. He seems much more energetic in on the "ConstruKCtion of Light" tour. One of the high points of the whole set is on disc 2 when he asks the crowd "Do you ever wonder what one of us sounds like......... I do!" and proceeds to absolutely SHRED "Three of a Perfect Pair" on an acoustic guitar - totally solo! In comparison, on disc 1 he sits on a stool for "Dangerous Curves". When has the hyperactive Adrian EVER sat down? To be realistic, however, pointing to problems in Adrian's stage presence is splitting hairs. Adrian might be showing his age, but any musician would be challenged to recreate what he does. He rides the music like a wave, and is the perfect foil to Fripp's Spocky-Vulcan playing style. It might not be inappropriate at this point to give Fripp-Belew a Lennon-McCartney status, especially if you have a doctoral degree in calculus. By the way, Fripp is Fripp. He seems more at ease reconciling the differences between his soundscapes and his angular blistering melodic lines than ever before. Like Miles Davis and Frank Zappa, he assembles musicians that epitomize synergy, and constantly challenges them with nothing more than the strength of his musicianship. No cognitive concept or aesthetic vision supercedes this strength. He is a master and a visionary, but is content to hide in the shadows during the accolades of his fans. Would that every musician revere music in this way. Outside of the longstanding relationship between Fripp and Belew, "The Power to Believe" left me with some troubling questions about how some of its songs would be executed live, especially in the case of the drums. How do you rectify the seemingly electronic sequencing of "Level 5" with its inherently improvisatory feel? Well, you get a drummer that can run a drum machine and play drums SIMULTANEOUSLY with no visible click track. There are fills that Matstelotto plays, and others he triggers that automatically line up with the sequence as he plays with it. In essence, Pat has a virtual auxiliary drummer that he both plays with and communicates with as he sees fit. The mind friggin' boggles.... However, as a Stick player, my greatest joy is getting the opportunity to (repeatedly) watch Trey Gunn express himself on the similarly touchstyle Warr guitar. The double-edged truth about touchstyle guitar is that fully appreciating the technique of the player is difficult on a recording. It takes a finely tuned ear to even discern a touch guitar in the mix, especially when there is processing involved. Trey's approach is so unique, as is his technique, that is really must be seen to be believed. I have been at a loss to even think of how to practice what he does. He plays so emotionally and with so much utter control of the instrument that it absolutely brings a tear to the eye. At one point, he puts his guitar on a keyboard stand like a lap-steel (which opens up a whole different set of technical options) and comfortably plays like the instrument as if it was meant to be played in this fashion. For his grand finale, he wears one guitar and keeps the other on the stand and plays them simultaneously, as if he were the Rick Wakeman of touchstyle guitar. Overkill? Probably. Impressive? Undoubtedly. His recent departure is A HUGE loss to the history of KCrimsoning. Okay, so why four stars? Here's my beef: twice Adrian overdubbed guitar solos. During an up-close, his hands are obviously not doing what the guitar is. I would rather hear mistakes and sound problems any day than have my belief in what I am watching and hearing is not honest. These two incidents make me question whether other things I am hearing are what were actually happening. I think that KC should know that anyone who watches this DVD has enough musical savvy to tell an overdubbed solo The Lowdown: Although "Eyes Wide Open" may not boast high-end presentation that "Deja Vrooom" did, it is still a technical bonanza for those of us that look at musical performances as a venue for constant growth. More than any other, this particular incarnation of King Crimson had the opportunity to evolve into a particularly compelling unit, and "Eyes Wide Open" convincingly conveys a great feeling for what they were trying to say and how they said it.