UK Revisited: Concert Review
Quiet Wednesday night. Chicago. We ride across the city to Reggies—a spray-painted rock and roll palace of exposed brick, steel beams, and a large front-of-house speaker array.
They need every decibel.
We’re there to hear UK.
UK is celebrating 50 years, which makes me stand back against the wall and feel the years. I first heard UK back in the 70s when I was working shows as a roadie. Eddie Jobson, prog rock maestro extraordinaire, built this amazing project through multiple iterations starting with a roster of superstar players— Bill Bruford, Allan Holdsworth, Terry Bozzio, and continuing with UKZ, and the current UK Revisited with Marc Bonilla on vocals and bass, Alex Machacek on guitar, and Marco Minnemann, drums.
We get to the venue an hour early, and there’s a line out the door. Generations from the seventies to the mid-21st century. I don't know what to expect. I’d heard Eddie had retired. There were UK sightings around the place, mostly Tokyo and Europe, but there’s something else in the air here. Something I hadn't sensed in a while.
We’ve come to this strange place in the music. It's been a steady digitization of pulse and melody, an increasing alienation of human-form music, an artificial intelligence assault. A debate raging. Copyrights stolen. A strange world where you can't tell what's real and what isn't. It drives you a little crazy. What can you trust? What are you hearing?
From the first note of UK, you hear what you can trust. Four players. One intense groove.
Eddie steps in from stage right and stands in a single up light, casting shadows across his body and illuminating the transparent green plexi-glass electric violin. It’s a signature look for Eddie as his bow works sheets of notes that fold back on one another until the club is drenched in sonic waves of reverberant riffs.
The set opens with a trio from UK self-titled debut album, and the second, Danger Money, before covering King Crimson’s One More Red Nightmare.
Then a classic:
Black clouds moving gray sky to thunder
Kinetic sunrise fever and flood
Fire and water element anger
Horizon melting to blood
Marc Bonilla taking on the voice of legend John Wetton as he sings By the Light of Day.
Marco Minneman takes control with a tight poly-rhythmic explosive drum solo. I’m counting in my head, trying to follow it. Hopeless.
The band catches fire with the mind-boggling technical acrobatics of Presto Vivace dropping into In the dead of the Night.
Eddie Jobson has worked his way to the very top of Prog Mountain. A career of exceptional, pyrotechnic virtuosity. An iconic career onto some of the most challenging stages of the last fifty years. A consummate player in a world where the word player itself is reserved for a caliber of elite musicianship granted to the very few. He is a treasure and a reminder in collapsing times that nothing creates more light than a band climbing musical peaks and inviting us along for the ride.
The night opened with a quieter, lingering moment. A father and son sharing a stage, Eddie’s son Chris Jobson debuting his singer/singer career, while Eddie accompanied him on keyboard. A beautiful contrast.
UK Revisited
Full Set List
Reggie’s Chicago 10/7/29/6
Alaska
Time To Kill
Danger Money
One More Red Nightmare (a King Crimson track)
By The Light of Day Pt.II
Drum Solo
Presto Vivace
In The Dead of Night
Nevermore
Carrying No Cross
Caesar’s Palace Blues
The Only Thing She Needs
Sahara of Snow Pt II
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