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CONCORD, Calif. — Although King Crimson has released new material on some of the several live albums since its most recent studio album in 2003, it’s still the older songs that carry the day in concert. Some of those songs date back to the band’s audacious 1969 debut. And on what the band bills as its “Music is our Friend” tour, the septet led by Robert Fripp—touring on and off since 2013—came to the Concord Pavilion on Aug. 5 and performed dependable, and occasionally changed-up, versions of the songs it’s been plying for decades.

There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you. What Fripp has called the “seven-headed beast” brought two hours of its intricate, dissonant and often bombastic and usually challenging prog-jazz stew to a two-thirds-full pavilion.

The band’s onstage setup is unique, with the three drummers (Pat Mastelotto and Gavin Harrison, plus drummer-keyboardist Jeremy Stacey) fronting the stage. The drummers established their agenda immediately with a communal solo (“Drumsons”) that combined amazing precision—synchronicity, if you will—with maximum wallop.

The rest of the band—Fripp on guitar and mellotron (as always, seated for the entire performance), guitarist-singer Jakko Jakszyk, bassist-Chapman stick player Tony Levin and woodwinds player Mel Collins—set up behind and above  the drummers. They asserted themselves beginning with the second song, “Pictures of a City,” from their 1970 album, In The Wake of Poseidon. And while quieter songs like “Islands” (carried by Stacey’s piano) resonated, the tone for the evening was set more by the ferocious “Red,” “One More Red Nightmare,” “Indiscipline” and “Level 5” (also sometimes called “Lark’s Tongue in Aspic Part 5”).

Jakszyk, whose singing recalls original vocalist Greg Lake more that later singers John Wetton, Boz Burrell or Adrian Belew, kept a relatively low profile, but cut through the instrumental bluster, especially on “Nightmare” and “21st Century Schizoid Man.” At more than 50 years old, it’s still the band’s best-known song.

Most of these songs have been King Crimson concert staples for a long time, and the Concord show didn’t present much that it hadn’t covered in its last Bay Area stop in 2019 in Oakland.

But that isn’t a problem. These chestnuts are originals, with Fripp the visionary and the players he’s worked with over the years creating work that is always taut, almost always complex, often jittery and in its power like nothing else on the scene, even after all these years.

There also were reminders of how King Crimson started, as a sort of angrier and more complex Moody Blues. The mellotron-dominated “In The Court of the Crimson King,” from the band’s debut album, featured a great Collins flute solo. And the evening’s encore, the indestructible “Schizoid Man,” went from the slam of the familiar opening chords to sax improvisations by Collins and a percussion interlude, back to the famous chords before ending in a chaotic rush. It’s an old song, of course, but it delivers. It’s much like the band itself: old (its players ranging from 58 to 75) but strong and precise.

King Crimson shared the stage that night with two other acts.

The Zappa Band, made up of former members of Frank Zappa’s bands and others associated with the famous and controversial nonconformist, played faithful versions of 10 Zappa originals, including “Zomby Woof,” “Peaches en Regalia” and “Andy,” with guitarist Ray White and keyboardist-saxophonist Robert Martin switching off on lead vocals.

The evening was kicked off with a performance by the California Guitar Trio, three acoustic musicians who played originals and a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Echoes.” The trio first came together as part of a Robert Fripp guitar symposium; leave it to the crafty Fripp to find a creative way to balance out Crimson’s aggressive attack with something coming from a gentler place.

Follow journalist Sam Richards at Twitter.com/samrichardsWC.