The Double Duo era of King Crimson — the 1998–2003 configuration built around two interlocking pairs, with Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto driving the rhythmic architecture from below while the melodic layer ran above them — was among the most harmonically and texturally demanding periods the band ever put on a stage. That configuration is the foundation Tu-Ner was built to revisit. The trio — Gunn on Warr guitar, Mastelotto on percussion, and Markus Reuter on touch guitar — is running eight dates across the northeastern US this summer, and their second stop is Colony Woodstock on Wednesday, July 29.
About Tu-Ner
The show lands five days after Tu-Ner releases Rendezvous Rodeo, their live album due July 24 on Gunn’s 7D Media label. Recorded at The Stone Church in Brattleboro, Vermont last August, the 11-track record draws on reimagined King Crimson pieces and original compositions, and should give anyone walking into Colony with fresh ears a useful frame for the evening. It was, predictably, recorded live — the band’s entire operating philosophy leans toward spontaneous construction rather than replicated setlists. Tu-Ner describes their performances as “instant compositions,” three musicians building in real time with the kind of mutual awareness that comes from serious ensemble experience. What they play on July 29 will not be what they played in Connecticut the night before.
Gunn spent a decade in King Crimson and is among the serious practitioners on the Warr guitar — a tapped instrument that occupies the territory where bass and guitar overlap, and then pushes past both. His collaborators over the years have included Brian Eno, David Sylvian, and John Paul Jones; he founded 7D Media as a label built for music that resists easy categorization. Mastelotto has been with King Crimson since 1994, and his hybrid acoustic-electric drumming has been a through-line for the band across its later configurations; he came up playing with Mr. Mister and XTC before the Crimson years. Reuter, German-born and active in the touch-guitar world, performs with Stick Men and has worked with Devin Townsend and Gary Husband. His custom instrument is designed for what he describes as vast musical landscapes — which reads as either accurate or grandiose, depending on your patience for that kind of language. In the context of this trio, it turns out to be accurate.
About Colony Woodstock
Colony Woodstock holds 150 people. For a trio carrying this much accumulated mileage in one of the most demanding bands in progressive rock, that number is the point. The room is a Hudson Valley bar on Rock City Road — a town that has never needed much convincing to take music seriously — and the intimacy of the space is not a limitation for music built on live improvisation. When every dynamic shift lands within a few feet of the audience, the real-time composition process Tu-Ner practices becomes legible in a way it simply cannot be from the back half of an amphitheater. Colony Woodstock is at 22 Rock City Rd, Woodstock, NY 12498.
Tickets & Pricing
Doors open at 6:00 PM. Showtime is 7:00 PM, with the show running through approximately 10:00 PM. Tickets are priced at $35 to $61. Attendees under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. The venue’s no-refund policy applies. This is the second of eight northeastern US dates on the Tu-Ner summer run, which continues through August 12 in Pittsburgh.