How difficult is it to perform the guitar parts from King Crimson's 1980s' catalog?
Apparently very. Adrian Belew said he required surgery on his left hand after performing the group's music on his recent tour with Beat, the supergroup featuring guitarist Steve Vai, bassist Tony Levin and Tool drummer Danny Carey that performs Crimson's 1980s music.
Their tour saw the quartet honoring the prog legends’ trio of ‘80s albums, Discipline (1981), Beat (1982), and Three of a Perfect Pair (1984), and the challenge of the material was not lost on the two guitarists.
In the build-up to the road show, Vai revealed that the “relentless” picking patterns of the Discipline track "Frame by Frame" were particularly difficult, especially in light of his 2021 shoulder surgery. Several dates into the tour, King Crimson founding guitarist Robert Fripp recognized Vai's struggles and emailed valuable tips to help him master the song.
Post-tour, however, it was Belew who was left nursing his wounds. He had to have surgery to combat the bout of carpal tunnel syndrome that plagued his left hand as the tour made its way across the US.
“It would get numb,” he tells Guitar World. “And during part of the tour, it would stay numb from the moment that I woke up, all the way until sometime during soundcheck.
“It was a little scary,” he adds. “I’d be like, ‘Oh, boy, you better wake up soon!’”
Fortunately for Belew, his co-guitarist could sympathize with him, having suffered two cases of carpal tunnel in the past.
“Steve Vai was able to walk me through the process since he’s had it done twice,” he explains. “He reassured me that it was a simple operation and that it was not something that was going to go wrong. And on top of that, he introduced me to one of the best surgeons in the United States, who had done this work.”
The surgery, as Vai had predicted, was a success. “It’s perfect,” Belew says of his hand now. “This was an easy recovery and an easy operation.
“I’m back to full use of my left hand. While recovering, you can’t do much with it, and it’s a little tender,” he continues. “And then, you finally work back up to tempo. Now, I’m playing as I always did, except that there’s no more pain.”
Although having a shared lineage in Frank Zappa's band, Beat is the first time Belew and Vai have worked together. Seeing the man who fronted King Crimson for just shy of two decades, night after night, left Vai gobsmacked.
“I would say Adrian is underrated in the echelons of guitar,” he said earlier this year. “Nobody plays like anybody else, nobody can play like me, but they can get sort of close. Honestly, there’s no one close to Adrian.
“There’s a special way he’s crafted his own dimension of sounds,” he extends, although his oddball, MIDI-propelled Parker Fly guitar, which he dusted down for the Beat shows, certainly helps him with that.
A BEAT live release, “BEAT LIVE”, is due for release September 26th via InsideOut Music. The first track to be lifted from it, “Neal and Jack and Me” shows how the Vai-Belew guitar tandem is walking the tightrope between faithful renditions and thoughtful reimaginings.
It would stay numb from the moment that I woke up, all the way until sometime during soundcheck.
Adrian Belew
“This isn't a cover band,” Vai exaplined while preparing for their maiden show. “We're reinterpreting some things. My style and sound will flow into it, because it will be coming out of me.
“I'm trying my absolute best to respect every note that Robert wrote, it's just how I perform it might be a little different.”
In related news, Fripp’s somewhat controversial comments about Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton have resurfaced. The guitarist is currently recovering after suffering a heart attack earlier this year.
And hopes of a new King Crimson album have been dashed. Jakko Jakszyk had said that work on a new album was underway, but the band's management has since reduced expectations, calling excitement “premature.”
