Cheap King Crimson: Three of a Perfect Pair-Live I (Video) Price

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Customer Reviews of King Crimson: Three of a Perfect Pair-Live I

80's Crimson In Their Prime
Adrian, Robert, Bill and Tony put on a great show for the world on "Three Of A Perfect Pair". The performances are all excellent as expected, and it's interesting to see the way these four incredibly unique musicians work with their instruments. Bill Bruford's solo at the beginning of "Indiscipline" is really enjoyable to watch, as are Adrian Belew's methods of getting the most bizarre sounds out of his guitar. Adrian, being the most entertaining player on the stage, gets most of the camera time, although we sometimes get to see Robert Fripp calmly playing his lines, along with brief cuts to Tony Levin and Bruford. <
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>In all, this concert tape is definitely worth getting for any fan of the Eighties incarnation of King Crimson. It makes a great compliment to the near-perfect "Absent Lovers" live album from the same period.

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I HATE IT!
This incarnation of King Crimson played, so PERFECTLY and flawlessly, the incredibly IMPOSSIBLE music on this video that I couldn't keep up with it. It demands too much ATTENTION!
The fearless foursome play as one brain, in total unison. They must practice their craft 400 days of the year to get that tight. Every note from the guitar of the seemingly calm, sometimes cross-legged, Robert Fripp is played with laser-sharp precision. The drumming from Bill Bruford is incalculable. Tony Levin on the stick, bass and keyboard holds the band together like glue, sometimes playing the bass and keyboard simultaneously in unison with Bruford while Adrian Belew plays beautiful soundscapes on the guitar and sings to us with much emotion. They don't call him the "Twang Bar King" for nothing!
The sound quality is very crisp and well mixed. The videography is very nice as well. Some use of double exposure here and there to give a hallucinogenic effect adds nicely to the performance, while not being too cumbersome to distract from it.

I enjoy listening to music while driving, but this music would make me drive right off the road. I'd be studying the music more than the road or the traffic. If I drove off a cliff to my death listening to this music, it would probably be worth it anyway.

Oh, by the way... I don't hate it ;)

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A video companion to "Absent Lovers"
This video is awesome. It shows my favourite incarnation of this band on what must be their most stunning tour. This in addition to the fact that the video is a lengthy 87 minutes! What more could you ask for?!?

The mixing is as good as possible for the time period (unlike "The Noise", which is an equally amazing video except for the sub-King-Crimson-standard mixing), and the band pulls off excellent performances of all of these songs. Most notable has to be "Sartori in Tangier" (double drum action!), "Indiscipline" (also double drum action, I laughed out loud at parts of it) and "Industry" (great performance from the soundcheck, seems like a perfect song for that).

The title of this review suggests that this is the video version of "Absent Lovers", which in many ways it might as well be. This is no complaint, since I bought it 2 years ago I haven't been able to really care about any album I purchased after "Absent Lovers" (but I digress...). Many of the concert photos in the booklet for "Absent Lovers" are taken as snapshots straight out of this video. The major difference between the two being that this performance is from Japan, whereas "Absent Lovers" is from Montreal, Canada, although they were part of the same world tour. The mixing on "Absent Lovers" is beyond anything, so despite the fact that this video has some electronic effects that could have been mixed down it still receives a perfect rating. The only setlist difference between this and "Absent Lovers" this the inclusion of "No Warning" and the exclusion of "Red", which is a welcome trade, as "No Warning" in it's live format is unavailable elsewhere. It then segues into the always intense "Larks' Tongues in Aspic Pt. III", in which Robert Fripp uncharacteristically cuts loose during the coda solo. He just about flings himself off his chair, making some nicely contorted facial experissions all the while. He then ultra-suddenly regains his composure... it's something to watch.

Apart from the actual performances, you get behind the scenes footage, some of the band members playing their instruments, some of them as tourists in Japan, and some of the guys just being goofy. It is mostly concert footage however, which is good, as that's what I bought it for.

You get four musicians pushing the boundaries of their instruments, many times all at once, giving utterly flawless performances of their signature tunes. They all use some crazy extensions of their normal instruments, and individually can play way beyond the capabilities of most bands' best instrumentalist. Very crazy, very accomplished, very electronic, very worth buying...

VERY APE.