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As a massive music nerd, I can think of very few bands who have played for over 50 years and keep on reinventing themselves. Most bands decline over the years,
by moogly 5y ago
As a massive music nerd, I can think of very few bands who have played for over 50 years and keep on reinventing themselves.
Most bands decline over the years, but not King Crimson. That said, I have to say the double trio lineup is my favorite era of theirs.
The only other band that IMO comes close in keeping high quality for 50 years is probably Magma. The only difference is that they're mostly staying the same (not in a bad way, mind you), and not necessarily reinventing themselves. Instead they're just getting more refined.
- whichdan 5y agoI did not expect to see a Magma discussion on HN, haha. I saw them live back in 2015 and it was so surreal.
- phlakaton 5y agoAu contraire, I would not expect anything else but that there are Magma fans lurking on HN. :-P Some of us even have the necklace pendant to prove it! None other than Jello Biafra introduced them at a concert at the Fillmore not too long ago, saying how much he dug them. Now THAT was not something I was prepared for!
- accraze 5y agoAgreed! I saw Magma in Portland, OR on their 2016 tour. I remember how effortless they made everything look, all the songs seemed to blend in and out of each other, so surreal. It felt like I was watching some intergalactic opera/theater presentation, probably one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Wish I could understand Kobaïan...
- moogly 5y agoYeah, the show I went to in 2017 (they played Ëmëhntëhtt-Ré and Theusz Hamtaahk in their entirety) was the best show I've been to since Mr. Bungle's California tour back in 1999. Then I saw them 2 years later where they played a much extended version of De Futura (and other songs). Great, too, but as a smaller line-up.
- accraze 5y agoWow, Bungle's California tour is the stuff of legends. I've only seen videos but I still can't figure out how they managed to pull it off live. Never saw Bungle, but I did see Fantomas on the Suspended Animation tour, which was another one of those albums I have no clue how they managed to perform night after night.
- slothtrop 5y agoAgreed. I think Rush is another band that transformed their sound a few times while maintaining high quality output.
- dhosek 5y agoI lean towards the Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/[Cross]/[Muir] lineup myself, although the current line-up is edging towards it, held back by the paucity of new songs more than anything else.
- fuzzfactor 5y agoDiscipline: never an end in itself, only a means to an end. there's always this: https://www.dgmlive.com/ https://www.dgmlive.com/ this also recently published: https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-king-crimson-resurrected-themselves-with-islands https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-king-crimson-resurr... At the West Palm Beach Rock Festival in 1969 the original lineup was one of the bands that almost nobody there had ever heard of. But no-one had ever heard anything like it. Jimi Hendrix also had some consideration for joining them but did not live long enough for real collaboration. Greg Lake ended up in Emerson, Lake, & Palmer. Jon Anderson appeared on some dates once they had regrouped. When Wetton joined he was easily pulling his weight in a 5-piece, seemed a little nervous on their first American tour though. In the three-piece lineup, each year Wetton came back literally twice as strong as before. By the time he was in Asia, that was the time I can not forget the vocals shook the back rows of the indoor stadium as much or more than the bass, like I had never seen before or since.