By Rudy Lu
A Prog version of a power trio . Stick Men delivered a powerful set of music.
Filling out the sound in the absence of keyboards are electric string instruments that are played by touching rather than picking or plucking. Tony Levin playing the Chapman Stick which fills the lower end of the spectrum with some midrange, Markus Reuter plays the higher end with a touch guitar of his own design. Pat Masteletto provides the complex rhythmic beat with his drum kit and miscellaneous percussion. The band has been together for fifteen years, The members have collaborated among themselves and others in separate projects.
Tonights concert drew a small representative of the large repetoire that this band knows together and separately. Opening with the title song from their latest release “Brutal”, they wasted no time establishing the cadence of their set. The pace was maintained with “Sleepless” an old Fripp and Eno composition that has also been associated with King Crimson (KC). Levin and Masteletto were both members of the latest edition of KC, Levin has been with KC since 1981.
That intense music was accompanied by lyrics sung by Levin in “Crack In The Sky”, dedicated to the late guitarist Alan Holdsworth.
Tentacles was a product of COVID isolation and was composed with the band going in three different directions; communicating from their isolation only with electronic files. The band then proceeded with musical dialog with the audience by encouraging the audience to clap the complex rhythms of Nitro.
More KC music was interspersed throughout the set including “Red”, “Larks Tongue & Aspic Part II and “Part V”.
Music yet to be released was featured the set composed by Markus Reuter including “The Well”, an observation of people in India transporting water somehow interconnected to a spiritual journey. “Komodo” inspired by the giant lizards aka dragons in Indonesia and an unnamed piece.
Tony Levin took to the microphone again to sing “Prog Noir”, he observed how unusual it was for him to sing two songs with this project.
There was an irony in the way the written portions of the music were presented, there were bundles and unrolled sections of sheet music, so unlike the ipads we now are used to seeing on stage.
This was the third stop on the second leg of the Brutal Tour. The First Leg included the Cruise to the Edge from Florida then Central and South America and California. This leg is being covered via van with stops Woodstock, Northhampton MA, NYC and Rochester, NY. Go to the Stick Man website for details.
Thanks to Jonathan Newell, his staff & volunteers along the Stick Men Road Crew for making this show happen!
For more of what’s happening at the Strand go to their website here.
