King Crimson - Tribute To The Love Generation, Tokyo, Japan, October 02, 2000 (2018)

It’s a very polite smattering of applause from an invited audience that greet King Crimson on the first date in Japan. This play-in gig, not formally part of the tour, is the first time the team has played before an audience since London in July.
Having had only one rehearsal the day before, a still jet-lagged Crims begin to acclimatise as they stoically attempt to recall where fingers should go, when all those patches and triggers should be pressed, clicked and otherwise stomped.
“Good evening, fancy meeting you here. So this is what a club is like in Tokyo. Never played one before. Very interesting” says Adrian Belew as a guitar is tuned after a rousing Thela and a very briskly-paced TCOL. The resulting FraKctured whips along heroically with only some minor diversions towards the end.
Despite being clearly tired, not quite yet arrived in the body of the music, King Crimson make a go of it and pull off some impressive victories along the way (how about that double time section in Frame By Frame’s coda!), during what might best be described as an honourable show.