Carrboro Arts Center.

"Stick Men" is Chapman Stick and bass legend, Tony Levin's (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, just about everybody else), latest band. The other two Stick Men are Markus Reuter who plays something called a "Touch Guitar" (which he co-invented); it looks and is played a lot like a Stick, but seems to be strung in the guitar range; it has a really wide fret board and is played by tapping. And behind them sits drummer Pat Mastelotto (Mister Mister, King Crimson, many others). They play heavy, intricate stuff which sounds a lot like latter-day King Crimson; it's very dense, very loud, and melody usually takes a back seat to eye-popping technical complexity and power. They did a set of a half-dozen songs, and finished up with four parts of Stravinsky's "Firebird" suite. Wild.

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Tony Levin + Stick

Then the latest iteration of Adrian Belew's Power Trio came out.

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Julie Slick, Adrian Belew

They have a different drummer, this time around. Drummer Eric Slick, who was with them the last two times through the area has been replaced by the awesome Tobias Ralph. Mastelotto, who's no slouch, hits very hard, plays with a lot of power, but Ralph barely seems to be working at all, yet plays with blazing speed.

They also did a set of about a half-dozen songs, heavily weighted towards Belew's more recent heavy, complex instrumentals: "e", "Beat Box Guitar", etc.. He did sing on a couple of songs, though: "Young Lions" and a louder/heavier version of "Future Vision". Crushed em all.

Then, since Belew, Levin and Mastelotto are the only three members of King Crimson actively playing these days, they came out and started a set of all King Crimson tunes - except for "Red", all were from the Belew era: "Three Of A Perfect Pair", "Frame By Frame", "Dinosaur", "Indiscipline", "One Time", etc.. I've seen Belew do most of these songs a few times, but seeing them with Levin on Stick and backing vocals is something else.

Through the course of that set, the other members of the groups came back on stage. So, by the time they got to "Red", all six of them (two drummers, two bass/Stick, two guitar) were up there, recreating the last King Crimson "double-trio" setup - making one hell of a racket. Of course, they're all so fucking good that it's a very tight and intentional racket. Incredibly tight. The two drummer's double-solo (during the start of "Indiscipline, IIRC) was pretty damn incredible.

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Markus Reuter, Julie Slick, Adrian Belew

We ended up with "VIP" tickets (because I bought them early, not because I'm special), so we got to watch their sound check, and do a little meet-n-greet with them before the show. That was fun. Got the three KC members to sings my "Vroom" CD. Got pix with Belew and Levin. Dear Sweet wife - one of very few women in the audience - got her picture with Julie Slick.

Twenty-five-plus years ago, when my uncle first played "Discipline" for me, Belew and Levin (and Bruford and Fripp, obvs) were like gods. And I finally got to meet them. And they were nice!

Tonight, Blondie.