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Fracture was always a bear trap that would greedily chew up any unwitting fingers, and on this first night in Wroclaw, it demonstrates that even when those fingers are in tip-top condition, the teeth of that hungry maw are still capable of nipping off the ends of a guitarist’s digits. While Fripp occasionally has his fingernails clipped, his ability to recover and continue the challenge makes this piece never less than astonishing. At the other end of the spectrum, a different kind of concentration is called for. Since its reintroduction to the setlist in 2014, The Letters, previously performed live only in 1971, has become one of the undisputed high points of any of these Crim concerts. Coming after the tussle between the baritone, sparkling guitar embers and shifting drum rolls, Jakko’s peerless reading of lyricist Peter Sinfield’s tale of betrayal and tragedy carries with it such a sombre stillness that the pin-drop silence in which the unaccompanied final verse is heard is, to use the cliché, deafening. Two very different tracks, but both capable of commanding the rapt attention of a crowded room.
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