Music aside, it was a minor miracle of prog-rock logistics alone. In the Year of Our Lord 2025, surviving members from each of the genre’s holy-trinity bands (Genesis, Yes and King Crimson) wound up floating on the same cruise ship. Alas, there was no one-off collaboration between Steve Hackett, Rick Wakeman, Robert Fripp and David Cross — a glaring missed opportunity from a selfish fan’s perspective. But even if it was tantalizing, the ninth Cruise to the Edge still felt like an event of real historical importance.
Fripp co-headlined the fest — which sailed April 4-9 aboard the Norwegian Gem — but, crucially, he graced the stage without a guitar. The Crimson co-founder joined his longtime collaborator and manager, David Singleton, for a pair of Q&As in the ship’s theater, where the duo doled out creative wisdom and shared funny stories. (And, yes, despite Fripp’s reputation for being stoic and inscrutable, the green-laminate show was filled with laughter and levity. In a pair of highlights, he shared his love of margaritas and recalled an excited run-in with two members of Spinal Tap.) The closest thing to live music: some video clips featuring the final King Crimson lineup and audio of his guitar collabs with Andy Summers.
Wakeman also played without a band, but he did bring a couple keyboards, surging through a solo set that included ornate themes from The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, and Yes staples (“And You and I,” “Wonderous Stories”), along with classical-styled arrangements of various pop classics (The Beatles’ haunting ballad “Eleanor Rigby” was presented in the style of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev). Along with showcasing his virtuoso chops, Wakeman also reminded fans why he may be the funniest human in rock music. (Let’s not forget: He essentially performed a full stand-up comedy set at Yes’ 2017 Rock Hall induction.) Both between songs and during his separate Q&A, which packed the ship’s atrium, he breezed through mumbled punchlines and quick-fire stories — touching on everything from the time he met Paul McCartney (the Beatle‘s “immortal” words: “You’re much taller than I thought you’d be”) to his assessment of encores as “bullshit.”
Ryan Reed, UCR
Hackett brought his reliably dynamic live band for a set balancing solo tunes (the shadowy slow-build-to-infinity of 1975’s “Shadow of the Heirophant”) and a number of Genesis classics. In this case, marking the 50th anniversary of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, he leaned heavily on that monster concept album, with the show’s big-shiver moments arriving via the instrumental fireworks of deep cuts like “The Chamber of 32 Doors” and “it.” Meanwhile, the event’s other OG icon was Cross, the versatile violinist who played with King Crimson during their acclaimed period of ’72 to ’74. His band conquered a series of mixing hiccups for a impressively aggressive set weaving in (no surprise) Crimson classics like the lurching and funky “Easy Money.”
While Cruise to the Edge paid respects to these progfathers, the event felt more modern than ever, and most of the event’s other MVPs were of the post-Boomer prog-metal variety — including regulars Haken and first-timers Caligula’s Horse, both of whom effortlessly balanced djent-y heaviness with falsetto-swept sweetness. These performances are crucial for the longevity of the cruise and the genre itself — after all, our heroes won’t be with his us forever. But the 2025 event, more than ever, felt like an overt attempt at tipping the cap to the pioneers who made all of this wild musical exploration possible.
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Gallery Credit: Ryan Reed
