Zappa Plays Zappa 2015

[polmico]

L

Same dude on the Cardiacs thread I just posted who does a stellar "Faster than a Snake..."

That looks very painful.

[Dave (in MA)]

Just sing the songs with your own voice. It would absolutely work.

IMO, those attending such a show can appreciate hearing another voice and really don't need to hear a fake Frank.

The Project Object approach.

[ronmac]

The Project Object approach.

Quite.

[boilk]

Saw them on Tuesday. The band was in fine form and the female keyboardist/sax/flautist brought the house down, with an amazing sax solo. Dweezil played superbly, and got some great tones out of his gear. The drummer was a monster. One thing that I noticed was that the main keyboard player has an amazing voice. I don't know if it fits the material, but I would have liked to have heard him sing more. I recommend this show to anyone with a remote interest in FZ, or good music in general, as I myself am not very familiar with the Zappa repertoire.

neil

[Plasmatopia]

ZPZ was great last night at the Paramount Theater in Rutland, VT. Surprisingly enthusiastic (normally stoic) New England audience. My impression was that they were really taking advantage of the solo sections to let the band do their own thing without trying to mimic any previous band line-up or well-known live versions. There's not much possibility of deviation in the composed sections.

And there were really very few areas where I thought Ben was mimicking FZ. In fact, he seemed to go out of his way to change the phrasing around and also to shift up to a higher octave than Frank would have (or even could have for that matter). Sometimes I wasn't so happy with the results as it felt like he'd come in either too early or too late. Overall I give them credit for trying to switch things up and not wanting to make absolutely everything note perfect.

Sinister Footwear was amazing!

[gpeccary]

I'm going to see them tomorrow at the vibes in bridgeport ct. Only because my daughter is there. I originally had little interest in seeing them after the first tour with bozzio and Vai, for reasons stated above. Zappas stage banter was ad-libbed, pertinent for the time and the man. Imitating it seemed cheesy. It's not frank nor could it be. I feel it's little more than a cover band, albeit, an AMAZING one at that. No credit taken away from their chops at all, it's just not frank. And I guess it would be alot different thirty years from now with new people playing his amazing compositions that never saw him, much like I guess it would have been in the times of Bartok as mentioned above. I don't know, and seriously doubt I ever will

[flowerking]

I'm going to see them tomorrow at the vibes in bridgeport ct. Only because my daughter is there.

Enjoy it for what it is, great musicians embracing Zappa's music and trying to get more people into Zappa.

[Plasmatopia]

I'm going to see them tomorrow at the vibes in bridgeport ct. Only because my daughter is there. I originally had little interest in seeing them after the first tour with bozzio and Vai, for reasons stated above. Zappas stage banter was ad-libbed, pertinent for the time and the man. Imitating it seemed cheesy. It's not frank nor could it be. I feel it's little more than a cover band, albeit, an AMAZING one at that. No credit taken away from their chops at all, it's just not frank. And I guess it would be alot different thirty years from now with new people playing his amazing compositions that never saw him, much like I guess it would have been in the times of Bartok as mentioned above. I don't know, and seriously doubt I ever will

If I recall correctly there were more tunes in previous ZPZ tours that contained cloned stage banter. Most of what I saw/heard this time around was from the albums. They weren't copying a live album and therefore weren't copying the frozen-in-time banter from a live album.

[Phlakaton]

Sinister Footwear and The Grand Wazoo alone were worth the price of admission. Sounded badass. DZ's solos were top notch.