Zappa '88

[polmico]

I'm listening now to the Barcelona show on Youtube and am just blown away by this band. We've got three live albums from the '88 tour but are any of them complete?

"Packard Goose" just rocks. Great to hear it. Ike Willis and Bobby Martin sound great when they harmonize. I know there were some problems backstage with this band, but, man, they sure do sound so nice on stage, don't they?

Not sure what I want to say with this thread, but I sure hope the ZFT can release a nice little '88 tour box set or the Barcelona show or something.

[flowerking]

Not only are those 3 live albums not of complete concerts, some of the songs are culled from multiple shows. There are also a few odds and ends songs from the 88 band on a couple of the Stage releases (primarily Stage 6 but I think there's one or two on Stage 4). I'd love to see ZFT release some entire shows. FZ must have recorded every show digitally, so you know they are in the vault somewhere. Even more of interest, when I saw this show in Columbus, 60 Minutes cameras were on stage filming it all (doing an article about FZ registering young people to vote in the upcoming election). Why has none of that footage ever seen the light of day?

[polmico]

How sick was Zappa during this tour. He doesn't seem as energetic as he was on the '84 tour.

Oh. Happy bday, Frank.

[Lieto]

An amazing band for sure. The Horn section and MK really make this band shine. I love all the zany improvs this band got into in tunes like Pound for a Brown. "Yuppies' has a nice chunk of these types of improvs. I hope ZFT releases more from this band too, the Packard Goose medley is one of the great unreleased gems. We DO however, get the middle section on Jazz Noise, but wheres Packard itself??

All 3 albums fo this band rate in my top FZ albums too!

Happy Birthday Frank, been doing celebrations all day did FZ plays the music of FZ and some favorite guitar solos (St. Etienne and Systems of Edges to name a few)

[arabicadabra]

Saw the first 47:47 of this - wow!

[Joe F.]

How sick was Zappa during this tour. He doesn't seem as energetic as he was on the '84 tour.

Did he even know he had cancer yet?

I have a DVD of the Barcelona show that was given to me. Great stuff.

[polmico]

I don't think he knew, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't feeling good.

[IMWeasel]

I've only got "Best Band...." and Ive watched the same video excerpts on youtube. Great stuff! I need to get the other live releases.

[Davey Dee]

Love this band & tour, saw them in Jersey that year. The Stairway encore is classic, with the horn section taking the guitar solo. Lots of recordings from this tour floating around.

[ronmac]

I was lucky enough to see both Pittsburgh shows on this tour and the two shows couldn't be more different than each other. Yet, the were each AMAZING!

[Plasmatopia]

I still routinely kick myself for not going to see the Burlington, VT show that a friend invited me to.

[Corbie]

I think one reason that there are no complete shows available is the amount of Beatles music that was performed on this tour. I think there is a rights issue. Certainly on the two dates I saw on the '88 tour, "I Am The Walrus" and "Lucy..." were both played (with adjusted lyrics, of course).

[polmico]

Ike quotes "Walrus"on Broadway the Hard Way.. Perhaps that's not the reason.