[black max]

King Crimson, the Agora Ballroom, Atlanta GA, 1981, Discipline tour. I ate an entire sheet of LSD a half-hour before hitting ground zero. We sat at a table fifteen feet from the stage, drank overpriced Molsons, and after suffering through some wannabe U2/Big Country band, saw the most incredible set I've ever been privileged to see. Fripp is, indeed, a god, though he's chosen to lay back a good bit now and let Belew and Gunn provide much of the firepower for the latest incarnation (he still provides the structure and can let 'er rip when he chooses). But nothing can touch that foursome of Fripp, Belew, Levin, and Bruford. That group touched heaven.

The bunch of us, dosed, dazed, and beyond overjoyed, drove halfway home, stopped at a Waffle House where we were served omelettes that looked like footballs sliced lengthwise, made it another hour or so, and stopped around 4 am at some friend's house in Alabama, where we slept the clock round and managed to trundle back home many, many hours overdue. Fun!

Biggest dichotomy between "good" opening band and "great" main attraction was Saga and Jethro Tull in 1984 ? , Merriwether Post, Washington DC. Sorry, Saga fans, but they were the absolute gut-wrenchingly worst excuse for a prog band that I've had the misfortune to be exposed to. Everything that is wrong with prog music was demonstrated by that bunch of pompous larda$$es that night. Of course Tull (the Broadsword tour) blew them away. (Watching twenty or so guys in white hospital johnnies stalking each other around the stage during "Watching Me Watching You" was easily worth the price of admission.)

*edited to correct bad date