Zappa Plays Zappa

A brief time out/work avoidance moment to tell you about our experience at Zappa Plays Zappa last night.

I'm a big Frank Zappa fan. I got into him while he was still alive but (unfortunately) after he had stopped touring. I'm a biggest fan of the One Size Fits All era, but I have several timeframes represented. Even so, I feel inadequate...I've only got about twenty of his seventy or so albums.

When I found out that Zappa's son Dweezil had put together a touring Zappa tribute band, I was intrigued. Dweezil always had the technical skills, but he was much more manic than his father, and I wondered if he would have the discipline to pull this off. However, every time I checked their tour dates, they seemed to be focusing on festival shows, and they seemed to never be around where I live, so it was all a moot point...until last night.

Zappa Plays Zappa came into Ann Arbor last night, and I managed to snag two 4th row seats...the joys of working at home. First, it was nice to be so close, I felt like the luckiest little girl in the world! Second, it was one of those shows where the spousal unit and I were lowering the average age...pretty much the exact opposite of what happened when thmarn and I went to see My Chemical Romance. Third, I love knowing that there's no opening act for me to groan my way through.

The band was utterly amazing...almost three hours of music. We got a lot of the classics: "Peaches," "Zombie Woof," "I Am The Slime," a couple songs off Joe's Garage, a dance contest, a smokin' "Cosmic Debris" that featured solos from everyone including the awesome Ray White, and a version of (get this) "Billy the Mountain"...it must've went on for a half hour, weird and funny as all hell.

Dweezil smokes. Having to sit and learn all of Frank's music was really good for him...he's more fluid than I've ever seen him, both faster and with more emotion. He's starting to look a lot like Frank, and he sure as hell can channel his father's playing. More importantly, he was sporting the "how lucky am I?" grin through most of the evening.

I'll never get to see Frank, but this evening made me a little less sad of that fact.

ps: With a crowd that old and a set list that long, people were constantly getting up to hit a bathroom. If Dweezil was more of a commercial slut, he should've had the whole deal sponsored by FloMax.