“My hand would stay numb from the moment I woke up till soundcheck”: Adrian Belew reveals he needed hand surgery after playing King Crimson guitar parts on BEAT tour
King Crimson’s 1980s catalogue has long been revered for its rhythmic complexity, and as Adrian Belew now reveals, it can be physically punishing too.
So much so that after performing the band’s material night after night on tour with BEAT – the all-star tribute to Crimson’s ‘80s era – the guitarist needed surgery on his left hand.
The tour, which saw Belew reunite with bassist Tony Levin and join forces with Steve Vai and Tool drummer Danny Carey, paid homage to the prog legends’ trio of wildly intricate albums: Discipline (1981), Beat (1982), and Three of a Perfect Pair (1984). Between the interlocking guitar lines, polyrhythms and relentless odd time signatures, the setlist was far from a stroll in the park.
READ MORE: Steve Vai calls one of his BEAT tour bandmates a “marvel”, explains why he’s “underrated in the echelons of guitar”
“It would get numb,” Belew tells Guitar World. “And during part of the tour, it would stay numb from the moment that I woke up, all the way until sometime during soundcheck.”
“It was a little scary,” he adds. “I’d be like, ‘Oh, boy, you better wake up soon!’”
As the musician explains, the culprit was carpal tunnel syndrome, which plagued his left hand as the group toured its way across the US. The injury also happened to be one Belew’s guitar partner on tour knew a thing or two about.
“Steve Vai was able to walk me through the process since he’s had it done twice,” he says. “He reassured me that it was a simple operation and that it was not something that was going to go wrong. And on top of that, he introduced me to one of the best surgeons in the United States, who had done this work.”
The procedure went smoothly as Vai assured. “It’s perfect,” Belew says of his hand now. “This was an easy recovery and an easy operation.”
He continues: “I’m back to full use of my left hand. While recovering, you can’t do much with it, and it’s a little tender. And then, you finally work back up to tempo. Now, I’m playing as I always did, except that there’s no more pain.”
Elsewhere, Vai himself has also spoken about the difficulties of playing King Crimson music, saying: “If you come to see Steve Vai in BEAT, you get to see Steve Vai working! You come to my solo shows, it’s another thing entirely.”
“Robert [Fripp] wrote beautiful parts, but the techniques didn’t come naturally [to me]. It’s different [from] what I do,” he admitted. “Some of this BEAT stuff took months to get under my fingers.”
The post “My hand would stay numb from the moment I woke up till soundcheck”: Adrian Belew reveals he needed hand surgery after playing King Crimson guitar parts on BEAT tour appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
