Helena and I just saw Zappa plays Zappa. It was the last show on the tour, but let me urge you to go see them when they go out again in October. I am tempted to see as many shows as possible across the country. This was a fantastic band in the typical Zappa tradition. Dweezil always has been a pretty good guitar player, but he went all out to do his dad justice (heck he was doing stuff his dad never did)

Drummer and vault-meister Joe Travers was the regular drummer and obviously knows Frank's work and the usual suspects: Terry Bozzio (minus one hand improvising as a lead singer and banging on the drums), Steve Vai (ouch! He can play), Napolean Murphy Brown (vocals, sax and crazy dancing), Warren Cuccarillo (a walk on playing beautiful guitar) were all great, but I think the idea was to get some new, younger players to play with Dweezil to showcase Frank's music (and style) to a new audience. The other band members must have been the best of the best. Aaron Arntz playing keyboards and trumpet (as well as the usual Zappa toys and noises - same as everybody in the band), Scheila Gonzalez sax and keyboards and the occaisional flute (I'd like to hear her more) Pete Griffon on bass, Billy Hulting on percussion and marimba, and Jamie Kime on guitar. Playing as a whole they sounded great. If you closed your eyes you could imagine Frank conducting (heck on one song if you opened your eyes you didn't need to imagine - they got a video of a Frank solo and played with him) but on the improvisational parts (with Dweezil supplying hand signals) and the "solo" spots these guys were great.

I've seen a ton of shows, but I can't ever remember a show where the band got a standing ovation - for every song. They played three and a half hours and it seemed like minutes. This wasn't just some bogus let's play the hits either. These guys were playing stuff throughout the years from the first album on. Stuff like Hungry Freaks, to Inca Roads. Jazz from Hell to Waka Jawaka. Rock, jazz, punk, big band, Zappa wrote all kinds and this band covered the gamut. And they played amazingly well.

At the end we got to see the Zappa family (including Gail) come out from backstage (man, has Diva grown up!). I haven't even covered the rare video footage of Frank and band (playing Montana) that started the show. Let's just say it was a good show... Even the Warfield which normally has such regular shitty sound only screwed up a couple of times.

I will be going back to watch them on the next tour. You should go.

http://www.myspace.com/frankzappa
http://www.myspace.com/dweezilzappa
http://www.zappa.com/