I don’t get out much these days. COVID did a bit of a number on me, forcing me inward, making me reclusive. Used to be I’d ride my motorcycle to work 25 miles each way, dicing with traffic, then go out for lunch, and out for beers afterward. I had a social life, a social circle. Working from home did away with all of that.
Nowadays, I don’t really want to go out unless I have to. Everything seems like so much effort. I guess it doesn’t help having a slamming stereo system here at home, one that makes me shake my head in astonishment as it plays, as it makes me look up from my writing. I’m just so comfortable here now.
The recluse: Jason Thorpe traveling
In the movie Barfly, Henry Chinaski is asked, “Don’t you hate people?” He thinks about it and responds, “No, I just feel better when they’re not around.”
I have another excuse not to leave the house. I’ve got to write, and that means sitting in front of my aforementioned reference system, working. Writing.
Audio shows are the antidote for me. Pack up my suitcase, laptop, and headphones, hop on a red-eye flight, and hit the halls, listening to cool gear. The last two years of show coverage have been especially satisfying. Used to be Doug Schneider and I would run these gigs together, Doug shaking hands and kissing babies, and me writing as fast as I could. It was fun, but exhausting.
Doug Schneider, Jason Thorpe, and Matt Bonaccio arriving in Warsaw
Back in 2023, we brought Matt Bonaccio with us to Warsaw, Poland, for the 2023 Audio Video Show. Matt is young—half my age—but he fits right in with Doug and me. He’s a sharp guy, well-read, intelligent, and amiable. And he sure can write, given that you’ve got to be able to crank it out—the SoundStage! model of on-the-spot reporting demands that you tour the show by day, and write about it that night. When the show is over on Sunday night, so is our coverage. Matt doubled down at High End 2024 in Munich this past year, producing almost too much material, making Doug sweat on Sunday night as he processed and posted it. Take a look at what we accomplished. It’s impressive, and we’re right proud of it.
Back to me and my newfound introversion. As I noted in my November editorial, I went to an actual rock concert the Friday before we flew out to Warsaw. I’d been trying to get tickets for “BEAT - Belew/Vai/Levin/Carey Play 80s King Crimson” but was unsuccessful—the entire tour was sold out in moments.
BEAT playing King Crimson
My neighbor Rob—he of the My Audiophile Neighborhood blog series—surprised me by purchasing two tickets from a sketchy scalper site. “You’d been talking about this show for months now. I couldn’t let you miss it,” he said when he presented me with the tickets. I’m a cold-hearted curmudgeon, but this gesture touched me—thanks so much, Rob.
Jason and Rob
The show was superb, as I related last month. The PA stack obstructed our view, but still, we had a great vantage point from which to watch Danny Carey as he drummed up a storm on what looked like a recreation of Bill Bruford’s ’80s kit, and Steve Vai working his complicated effects board. A thoroughly satisfying night.
Steve Vai
So that was Friday, October 18. On Tuesday, October 22, we flew to Warsaw, and Audio Video Show 2024 started on Friday, October 25. As I perused the show’s press releases and assorted notifications that come along with subscribing to the mailing list, I noticed that Trey Gunn, the bassist and multi-instrumentalist, would be on hand to chat about his music.
Now get this. Gunn played with King Crimson between 1994 and 2003. This was the band’s double-trio period, adding to the ’80s lineup of Robert Fripp (of course), Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, and Bill Bruford. The addition of Gunn, along with Pat Mastelotto on drums and percussion, meant that there were two guitarists, two drummers, and two bass players. It was a complex, dense configuration. I saw this lineup twice in the ’90s when the band swung through Toronto, and enjoyed it greatly each time. Their first album as a double trio was Thrak, which is a fun, thoroughly listenable exercise in progressive rock.
So Gunn would be speaking on Friday, the first day of the show, at the Radisson Blu Sobieski hotel, the main show venue. But we had committed to spending Friday at the PGE Narodowy stadium. Back in 2023 we went to the stadium on the Saturday of the show, and it was so busy that reporting on the event was nearly impossible.
Jason and Matt at PGE Narodowy
I thought about it a bit, and resigned myself to missing out on Gunn’s talk. I was in Warsaw to work, and that had to come first. Still, it stung a little—I would have liked to hear him reminisce about his time with Crimson and discover what he was currently up to.
Saturday night found us out at dinner with Adam Mokrzycki, the organizer of Audio Video Show. This dinner, at a Middle Eastern fusion restaurant, had the hallmarks of becoming a traditional event where Mokrzycki gathers all of the journalists in attendance at the show. I was seated across from Mokrzycki, and I mentioned that I was sad I had missed Gunn’s appearance, given my love of King Crimson.
“Trey Gunn is playing in Warsaw tomorrow night,” said Mokrzycki. “Would you like me to get you a ticket? I have a contact with Warner Music who is promoting the show.”
Adam Mokrzycki texting
“Why yes, Adam, thank you,” I replied, too startled to be anything other than nonplussed.
After thinking it through for a few seconds, I said, “Could I please get two tickets? Young Matt here,” I gestured at Bonaccio sitting beside me, “has never been to a concert before.” Bonaccio rolled his eyes, absorbing my jab with practiced ease.
It turned out that Gunn was touring as a member of Tu-Ner, along with Pat Mastelotto (also part of the King Crimson double trio) and Markus Reuter, and was playing that night as part of the Jazz Jamboree 2024 festival. I wasn’t familiar with Tu-Ner, but I was happy to take a chance and go into the concert without preconceptions.
Trey Gunn
The concert itself was most enjoyable. There were two opening bands, both from the Yes-meets-Weather Report school of progressive fusion. The main event was great, although more for me than for late-millennial Matt, given my familiarity with and penchant for Crimson-related music. Both Gunn and Reuter were playing Warr guitars, which are many-stringed instruments that cover the full range of both bass and guitar. The Warr guitar, like the Chapman Stick, can be played by tapping the strings or by plucking them. Moreover, the lowest notes of Gunn’s and Reuter’s instruments are significantly lower than that of the traditional electric bass, which adds an extremely cool sense of menace to their sound.
Pat Mastelotto and Markus Reuter
Gunn and Reuter traded off bass and guitar duties, and their precise playing complemented Mastelotto’s loose-limbed drumming. While I loved their music, I could see that Matt was getting a bit bored, and I could sense that he probably thought they were getting paid by the note.
The sound quality of the PA system was superb. The levels were loud enough to qualify as rock-concert volume but without any ear strain. We could just about talk over it, but I still felt the impact in my chest from the kick drum and got that vague seasick feeling from the low bass.
Lately I’ve had several big-ass speakers in my listening room, culminating in the Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 Signatures, and my preferred listening levels—when the neighbors are out—are in line with what I heard at this concert. We audiophiles like to blather on about how we should use live music as a reference, but that’s a difficult idea to conceptualize when it comes to amplified rock. How loud is loud? The Guns N’ Roses concert I saw about 30 years ago was so insanely loud that afterward my ears rang for a week straight. No way would you want to try to replicate that experience. But a few months back I saw the Cowboy Junkies at a local music theater, and, just like Tu-Ner, the sound was excellent and the levels were perfect—loud enough to entertain, but not so much that it was unpleasant. So without realizing it, I’d been setting my levels at home to match these experiences. Where the speakers would support it, I’d play it loud, searching for just this sort of impact.
As part of their closing remarks, Gunn mentioned that “BEAT - Belew/Vai/Levin/Carey Play 80s King Crimson” would be touring through Warsaw sometime in 2025. The crowd reacted enthusiastically to this news, but I shook my head—I had just seen this performance the week before.
Tu-Ner
And so that Sunday night was my second King Crimson–related concert in two weeks, capping off a period of more activity than I’d experienced in the past four years combined—the BEAT concert in Toronto, followed by Audio Video Show and Tu-Ner in Warsaw.
As I’ve said before, I feel great affection for Warsaw. It’s a clean, safe city with great museums and galleries. The food is superb and reasonably priced (although inflation is starting to eat away at this value), and the old city is charming. Though 2024 marked my fourth time in Warsaw, this one was special. And so busy.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
