BEAT brings '80s King Crimson to DPAC with Terry Bozzio behind the kit

Adrian Belew, Steve Vai, Tony Levin and Terry Bozzio play Durham Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Four musicians, three albums and a lot of interlocking guitar. BEAT's fall tour reaches Durham this month, and the band on stage isn't quite the one that started it.

BEAT plays Durham Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are through Ticketmaster, and DPAC posted the date on its own news page back in August.

BEAT exists to play one stretch of one band's history. The group was formed to revisit and expand the music from King Crimson's 1980s albums *Discipline*, *Beat* and *Three of a Perfect Pair*, per Ultimate Classic Rock. Adrian Belew sang and played guitar on those records, and Tony Levin played bass on them. Steve Vai fills the other guitar chair. Belew has also said some '90s Crimson material will turn up on these U.S. shows.

The news this fall is behind the drums. Founding BEAT drummer Danny Carey of Tool isn't on this run because of earlier commitments with his own band, and Terry Bozzio, best known for his work with Frank Zappa, has stepped in, Blabbermouth reported. That changes the feel of a band built on polyrhythms, and it's a reason to go even if you caught BEAT before.

The tour is big: 40 dates, announced Aug. 4, running from Oct. 9 in Santa Cruz to Dec. 3 in Riverside, California, per JamBase. Durham comes in the back half, after swings through Ohio, Michigan and New York. No Treble billed it as BEAT's final North American tour, which, if it holds, makes Nov. 17 the last chance to see this music played by these hands in the Triangle.

DPAC is a big room for a prog show. It holds 2,712, and when it opened on Nov. 30, 2008, it was the largest performing arts center in the Carolinas, per Wikipedia. It's a seated theater, which suits a band whose audience comes to listen closely.

If it holds, Nov. 17 is the last chance to see this music played by these hands in the Triangle.

Some reunions sell nostalgia. This one sells three records that still sound strange forty years on, played by two of the people who made them. That's worth a Tuesday.

Sources: BEAT comes to DPAC on November 17 (DPAC) (dpacnc.com); Adrian Belew's BEAT Announces New 2026 Tour Dates Celebrating King Crimson (Ultimate Classic Rock) (ultimateclassicrock.com); Adrian Belew, Steve Vai, Tony Levin and Terry Bozzio announce fall 2026 BEAT U.S. tour (Blabbermouth) (blabbermouth.net); King Crimson Supergroup BEAT Schedules Fall 2026 North American Tour With Terry Bozzio (JamBase) (jambase.com); BEAT Announces Final North American Tour With Terry Bozzio on Drums (No Treble) (notreble.com); Durham Performing Arts Center (Wikipedia) (en.wikipedia.org); Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.evyy.net); JamBase listing (jambase.com)