ZombyWoof: they're playing (y)our song!

Tonight notmyprez and I saw Dweezil's Tour de Frank, a/k/a Zappa Plays Zappa. It started out slow-- they started with some stoopid modern rock sounding piece that none of us could recognize, then did fairly cartoony versions of "Hungry Freaks Daddy" and "Let's Make the Water Turn Black" and "The Idiot Bastard Son," all songs recorded before Dweezil was born. But Napoleon Murphy Brock was the featured singer, and when they went into his old repertoire, and stuff from that era, it got very good indeed. "Montana," "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow"/"Saint Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast," "Inca Roads," "Cheepnis," "Village of the Sun"/"Don't You Ever Wash That Thing," and yeah, they did "Zomby Woof," which reminded us of you. Terry Bozzio came out and they did a bunch of his features: "I'm So Cute," "Trying to Grow Me a Chin," "Punky's Whips," and "The Black Page" as a drum trio (there was a full time drummer and a mallet percussionist too). Then they brought Steve Vai out to do the guitar version of "Black Page," and some more pyrotechnics-- that was the point where I decided I ought to go home and burn all my guitars. The last number of the real set was "Cozmik Debris," and they came back and did "Eat That Question" and "Trouble Every Day" as encores. The band consisted of Dweezil and another guitarist (who had to do enough tricky parts in tunes like "Peaches En Regalia" that it wouldn't be fair to just call him rhythm guitar), bass, keyboard guy doubling trumpet and harmonies, saxophonist doubling synth and high harmonies (a woman), the drums (who also sang) and the mallets, plus Brock on sax and flute, plus Bozzio and Vai.

Now I'm going to bed. I'd appreciate it if somebody could kick this so ZombyWoof can see it...

with my morning ZombyCoffee

This is the first chance I've had to come to DU since the concert. I totally agree with squeech as to the caliber of the show. This is the third time I've seen Vai in concert, and I still always say, "What the fuck did he just do?" when he's playing something phenomenal. Zappa credited him with "impossible guitar parts" on the albums he was on, and that pretty much says it all. Solos with Vai and Dweezil together were a guitarist's wet dream. All of the musicians were excellent--those are the only kind that can play Frank's compositions. I'd say Dweezil would have made his dad proud in putting this show and tour together.