BEAT at Nippon Budōkan

Finished — 2025-09-01

Before the show I met a fellow chilling by the drink machines on the waterside in Kitanomaru park, wearing a Rovo shirt, and got to talking for upwards of two hours. It turned out we’d both seen Rovo open for Clammbon at Liquid Room in 2002. He had encyclopedic knowledge of prog and classic rock, and had traveled to Europe and America numerous times to see some of my favorite bands. He clued me in to a Les Claypool appearance coming up at the Blue Note Tokyo in November.

I had sprung for the highest tier of ticket, guessing that this might be my last chance to see a semi-official King Crimson performance. I’m still working on inhabiting the right state of mind when at a concert, rather than just letting my mind wander in the default mode network. But I arrived at a pretty good meditative state of contemplating the accomplishment of such an extraordinarily low-entropy state. And generally recognizing that these musicians gave me a glimpse of the Eternal when I was particularly receptive to it as a teenager.