Fripp vs. Vai

Adrian Belew’s Beat is not a King Crimson tribute band. Belew and bassist Tony Levin’s presence mostly guarantees that, but newcomer Steve Vai oddly does too. When I saw Beat perform in Richmond earlier this month (mostly fulfilling one of my adolescent dreams), I witnessed Vai’s exceptional performance of Robert Fripp’s portion of the 80s Crimson compositions.

Though seemingly note-for-note identical, the waves of hammer-ons, pull-offs, string bending, whammy barring, and — for the most twirling of Fripp’s signature counterpoints  — finger tapping surprised me. The leg kicks, pelvic thrusts, and groovy body English surprised me too. Vai’s style is more Van Halen theatrical than Robert Fripp deadpan.

It would be unreasonable and, worse, uninteresting to expect Vai to not only play Fripp’s parts but also to imitate the idiosyncratic ways that Fripp played them. If he did, Vai might bend Beat into the embarrassment of a cover band, one that happened to include two members of the original quartet. Think Judas Priest c. 1996.

If Belew had wanted a Fripp clone, he could have enlisted a graduate of Fripp’s Guitar Craft, all of whom are intimately familiar with their mentor’s idiosyncratic guitar tuning. Vai instead gives Belew’s touring band its own integrity, which I both appreciate and find just a smidge disappointing.

“Lark’s Tongue in Aspic, Part 3,” the concluding anthem of the 80s band’s trilogy, ends with a Fripp lead that’s a startlingly slow and sparse sequence of one-note avalanches. An unfamiliar listener might not realize that a guitar was involved. Of all moments for Vai to untether himself from the recorded original, this seems both the most and least appropriate.

Vai’s lead was blistery in a bluesy way. He grooved. He may even have gotten a tiny bit funky.

Those are not Robert Fripp adjectives. Again, I appreciate Vai for interpreting without imitating. Vai is a member of Beat. Fripp is not. Yet it was also a pleasure to witness Vai’s interpretations because they revealed so much about their absent source material.

Fripp is as far from blues as any rock guitarist has gotten. He does not cavort in 4/4 time. His tuning isn’t conducive to minor riffs. Though his anti-showmanship showmanship might seem stiff or stoic to a casual observer, I would call it methodically tensionless. Rather than its impassioned embodiment, he’s his music’s impersonal conduit.

While I credit Levin’s stick and Bill Bruford’s synthetic drums (which newcomer Danny Carey has appropriately replaced) for so much of the 80s Crimson sound, the guitar duo was its defining premise. Belew brought boisterous virtuoso gimmickry to counterbalance Fripp’s affectless Zen earnestness. He also brought a slide tube, whistle, and power drill. Even watching Belew perform live with Beat, I couldn’t always decode how he produced some of those improbable noises. But having another guy on stage also wiggling his whammy bar maybe felt a smidge superfluous.

Half the fun of Belew is Fripp playing his straight man.

I’ve heard the pre-Belew Crimson called humorless, and maybe it was. But the post-1975 Fripp was something different. My wife and I saw him perform with the League of Crafty Guitarists in the late 80s, and she laughed out loud when he strummed a variation of Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” in response to another guitarist’s Bach-like flutter of rhythmless atonic notes. “I never heard someone tell a joke with a guitar before,” she said.

Since this is already 80s-themed, think of comic Stephen Wright. While it’s perfectly possible to perform one of his one-liners with a wink and a giggle, he based his stand-up career on an ability not to crack a smile after saying things like: “I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.”

Fripp is the musical equivalent.

Yes, perching motionlessly on a stool with perfect expressionless posture likely is the most efficient way to produce that blur of fingers up and down a fretboard. But it’s also the antithesis of rock ‘n roll flamboyance. Fripp knows that. Obviously he knows that. And he milks the contrast like Wright stretching a deadpan pause. It’s just funnier that way.

Vai, on the other hand, prefers a wink and a wiggle. And why not? The rest of the Richmond audience and I were there to roar regardless.