Fri. March 6

King Crimson at Showcase Live Friday March 6? Not quite. But former King Crimson bassist-singer John Wetton is leading a group of 20 players – ages 14-17 – through a set that will include eight Crimson songs, four songs from Asia (his post-Crimson “supergroup”) and two from UK, the prog-rock/jazz outfit he formed with his former mate in Roxy Music, Eddie Jobson. Why the kids? Wetton, who turns 60 in June, signed on with Paul Green’s School of Rock, the organization that has schools all over the country, including Watertown. This trek features the Paul Green School of Rock All-Stars. Wetton did his first tour with the kids a few years back, and, after the first night of rehearsal wrote in his diary, “What am I doing?” Then, at the end of the tour, he told us, “I was totally in love with it.  It’s a life experience. I gladly jumped at the chance to do it again. There’s an enormous sense of being able to give something back.”
Now, King Crimson is the ultimate prog-rock band, which is to say there are numerous key, chord and tempo changes. It’s not something the three-chord punk rock guitarist would tackle. What about these kids. “They know the music,” says Wetton. “They have very, very high standards, And I keep on their tails about stuff.” Perhaps, one suggests, they may even know the material better than better than Wetton, who recorded three classic albums with Crimson 1972-74. “Yes, absolutely,” he says. “It was 35 years ago. And sometimes I’ve rearranged the stuff way away from where it was originally, maybe 15 times. They’re playing the original versions they learned from records or before I even got there.”
Now, if you’re wondering where King Crimson mastermind, mercurial and brilliant guitarist Robert Fripp stands on this, Wetton says, “Robert is very much in favor of this. We’re still very good friends; we grew up in same area. He mentioned it to me last night, that he got [the Wetton/School of Rock tour] up on the Crimson [website] gig list. He very much smiled it on.” The kids who play guitar, Wetton says,   “can do Robert’s [sound], maybe not with the same technique, but they make the same noise. It’s blindingly good stuff.”
Wetton, by the way, has JSInk’s stamp of approval, in large part, because of the work he did with early Roxy Music – he’s not on the albums, but he was often the touring bassist – and for the recorded work he did with Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera and Fripp. He, in fact, played on the Eno/Fripp masterpiece, “Baby’s On Fire.” “We found each other mutually fascinating,” says Wetton. “There was a lot of cross-fertilization.”
Wetton is not the retiring sort. “I never believed in not doing anything,” he says. “From the age of 14, I didn’t feel right being out on a Saturday night and not playing a gig. It’s against my religion. I like to work.”
And, this work, has different kinds of rewards. He says on the last tour, at the end of it, he identified three kids he was certain would go on and do very good things – “whatever it was, the technique, the confidence or that combination. They were absolutely bang-on.” (The 20 kids play in various combinations during the concert. Wetton plays bass alone on two songs and helps out on others. He sings a couple of tunes, too.) “There’s a certain element of organized chaos,” he ads, “but there was in Crimson, too. It’s great on so many levels – musical, to see a kid that young be interested in music, not just in playing what’s current. They’re really passionate and work hard.”
What he doesn’t care for much is the Guitar Hero or Rock Band video games that have become huge among the button-pushing set. “My son got one,” Wetton says, “and it’s not really playing guitar. It’s learning to be a ‘rock star’ not a guitar player. It’s very much a part of today’s generation, the fame doesn’t come with having to play an instrument, but being on a TV show. This is the other side of the coin, kids working very hard on the playing.”
Who goes to the gigs? “There is a whole spectrum of people,” says Wetton, “kids the same age to grown-ups in their advanced years. Right across the board.”
The concert starts at 8; tickets $16.

23 Patriot Place, Foxborough, 888-35407042 www.showcaselive.com