I wasn’t initially going to write a review of the Adrian Belew show I saw the other night at Mexicali Live in Teaneck, NJ (that’s right — a real live music venue I didn’t have to drive to Brooklyn to get to! I didn’t think they existed either), but after talking with The Patient Mrs. sharing some thoughts didn’t seem so out of line. Take it or leave it.

First and foremost, if you don’t know who Adrian Belew is, he’s been playing guitar in King Crimson since the band got back together in 1981, and before that he’d worked with David Bowie and Frank Zappa. He’s also has a more than considerable solo discography. Basically, he’s a genius with a guitar. The name of this tour was “Painting with Guitar,” and Belew was joined on stage by four of his own paintings, a new Yamaha Tenori-on, and a laptop. So yeah, you could call it a one-man show.

He played some Crimson material, “Three of a Perfect Pair” and “The Power to Believe” (unless I’m mistaken), as well as some new, mostly instrumental pieces and a song from his band The Bears, launching at one point into the sitar line from The Beatles‘ “Love You To,” much to the delight of the few who recognized it. In between he stopped to take questions from the nearly all-male audience — hippies and prog nerds of various shapes, sizes, ages and hairlines — which not only served as a welcome break from the overwhelming complexity of the music he was playing, but an education on his equipment, methods and history. He told a story about living with Frank Zappa that I’m sure has been recounted at least 700 times before, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

One of the chief complaints with technical prog (a category Belew might offset being included in by reminding as he did several times from the stage that he can’t read music) is that the music has no soul. Watching Adrian Belew play with an ear-to-ear grin on his face as though he was continually astonished by just how neat the noises he can make with his guitar are, I firmly believe that those crazy loops and mathematically impossible time signatures are just the sounds his soul makes. He displayed every ounce the passion I’ve ever seen anyone play with, and he did it while mopping the floor with damn near the whole planet’s technique. It was something to watch.

Alas, the early show, over by about 9:30PM. Belew wound up taking three Q&A breaks through the set, most of one being dedicated to explaining why his new signature Parker guitar was pretty much the best thing ever, and closed with a long instrumental piece originally written for The Adrian Belew Power Trio, with whom he regularly tours. All in the span of maybe an hour, maybe a little more. And even as he discussed a conversation he’d recently had with Robert Fripp about reforming King Crimson next year for the 30th anniversary of the 1981 lineup, his love of the music came through clearly and honestly, and it was incredible to see and understand that there is a being out there capable of not only achieving that love but of maintaining it across a career spanning more than four decades. I left Mexicali Live smiling and don’t think I could have otherwise even if I’d wanted to.

Note: The song in the video below is called “Europe by Rail,” and it was written using the Tenori-on as a drum machine.