Sept. 21, 1978 review: Frank Zappa in the Aud

 

One of the all-time great Frank Zappa shows.

Sept. 21, 1978 

Being Whipped into Frenzy

Leaves Zappa Fans Wilted

        The true believers are out Wednesday night in Memorial Auditorium and one of them’s got a banner that hangs like viaduct graffiti on the wall above the orange box seats. “F. Z. Is God,” it proclaims.

        Actually, as rock ‘n roll deities go, Frank Zappa is more like a player-coach. After better than a decade and a half in the game, the father of the Mothers of Invention occasionally benches himself on a stool midstage, grandly smoking a cigarette while the band zips through its paces.

        As usual, he’s got his team in championship condition. Three of them are veterans of last year’s sextet – keyboardmen Peter Wolf and Tommy Mars, and percussionist Ed Mann – and they’re well-versed in the demanding zaniness of Zappa’s vision.

        So are the rookies. There are two new guitarists, one of whom shares the singing, plus a new bassist and a new drummer who throws in snorts, grunts and other animal noises from his perch at the right front corner of the stage.

        Zappa opens by leading them through an eight-minute instrumental warmup, then he turns to nearly 5,000 faithful in front of him. “Hi,” he says. They clap and whoop. It is this multitude that must be whipped into shape.

        In the teenage conditioning for adulthood, Zappa’s strategy is simple. Abuse them, amuse them and then, when they aren’t looking, slip some serious music to them. Avant-garde stuff somewhere between the modern classics and progressive jazz.

        What better place to start than with the craze of the day. “Dancin’ Fool” is the song. An insistent disco rhythm surfaces just in time for the refrain: “The beat goes on and I’m so wrong.”

        From there, he goes on to singles bars, dating, love and lifestyles, with lewd, sleazy choruses that would blister the ears of the Federal Communications Commission.

        Then he goes after evangelistic religions, but it isn’t until he starts talking about the music business that he trespasses on what the crowd considers sacred ground.

        Zappa uncorks that subject with “Mo’s Vacation,” a wordless bass and drums duet dedicated to an executive of Warner Bros. Records, against whom he just finished a bitter and protracted lawsuit.

        Angry voices challenge his assessment of Peter Frampton, British rock stars in general and the current state of rock ‘n roll, which he describes as “preposterous, meaning complicated and stupid.” Then he lampoons it all with a raunchy love song.

        At times like this, it’s obvious why Zappa’s contingent includes a bodyguard – that vigilant bald-headed genie stationed beside the drums for most of the two-hour, 25-minute show.

        But his wit lets him escape unscathed into the Nanook Trilogy, which includes the ever-popular “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow.” Zappa leads the audience in a mass pounce upon the evil fur trapper who’s beating on his favorite baby seal.

        He follows it with a false leave, returning to do another 45 minutes of new songs that cool off the audience with lengthy instrumental stretches. The finale warms up with a wild drum solo and the resonant distortion of Zappa’s guitar.

        The encore, “Dinah Mo Hum,” is done double speed. Zappa urges the crowd to sing along. They pounced good an hour ago, but now they’ve got no power left for the dynamo. They’re beaten. The game is over. “We’ll be back,” Zappa promises, “next year.”

* * * * *

IN THE PHOTO: Frank Zappa playing in Poughkeepsie, one night after the Buffalo date.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: At this moment, Zappa was touring to bring in money because he was feuding with his record companies. His shows included songs that would appear on his forthcoming albums, “Sheik Yerbouti” and “Joe’s Garage,” which were released on Zappa Records. He also had a major turnover in his band. The veterans from the Mothers of Invention departed. So did Adrian Belew, who had been taken aboard in 1977.

        The new crew included guitarist Ike Willis, who stuck with him through his final tours in 1984 and 1988. He was Joe in "Joe's Garage" and regularly appears in Zappa tribute shows. The other guitarist, Denny Walley, also played slide guitar and was a veteran of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. 

Bassist Arthur Barrow, whose music teacher father hailed from Buffalo and who actually is more of a keyboardist, grew up in San Antonio and became Zappa's rehearsal director. His Wikipedia entry notes that the band rehearsed eight to 10 hours a day, five days a week. Barrow did four tours with Zappa and has long worked with Robby Krieger from the Doors.

Zappa’s Wikipedia page notes that he had a particularly strong musical rapport with drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. Colaiuta's work on "Joe's Garage" is considered by Modern Drummer magazine to be one of the top 25 drum performances of all time. He went on to play on three Joni Mitchell albums and was best man at Joni’s marriage to her bassist Larry Klein. In the 1990s, he recorded and toured a lot with Sting.

Only six songs from this night in Buffalo are registered at setlist.fm, but there are a whole lot more from the following night at Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie:

 

The Deathless Horsie

Dancin' Fool

Easy Meat

Honey, Don't You Want a Man Like Me?

Keep It Greasy

Village of the Sun

The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing

City of Tiny Lites

A Pound for a Brown on the Bus

Bobby Brown

Conehead

Mo 'n Herb's Vacation

The Black Page

I Have Been in You

Flakes

Magic Fingers

Don't Eat the Yellow Snow

Nanook Rubs It

St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast

Father O'Blivion

Rollo

The Little House I Used to Live In

Tell Me You Love Me

Yo' Mama

Black Napkins

An entire Zappa concert from this tour, the one Oct. 13, 1978, at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, N.J., can be witnessed on YouTube. And then there's "Halloween," a live album compiled from more than one show at The Palladium in New York City at the end of October.