Well, this is a new one on me and no mistake. I’ve seen bands in the round: I’ve seen reunions, tributes, full album gigs, secret gigs, impromptu gigs, first gigs, last gigs, good gigs, bad gigs and plenty of tediously mediocre gigs, but this is surely my first ever holographic rock show. Or, to put it another way- though I may well have witnessed a musician die onstage before (Mick Farren’s tragic end at the London Borderline in 2013) this is the first time I’ve ever set out in the prior knowledge that I’ll be witnessing a legend- to whit, the one and only Frank Zappa- “dead in concert”
There’s been a fair whack of controv over this tour since it was first announced: not least of all from Dweezil Zappa and his representatives, what with the guitar whiz (whose own feelings on the matter have been openly and candidly expressed on several occasions) embroiled in a seemingly insurmountable legal battle with brother Ahmet (the driving force behind all this jiggery-pokery) and sister Diva over legal “rights” to this, that and the other since their mother Gail passed away in 2015. Or that’s one way of looking at it: everyone involved seems to have their own, to the point where nobody’s quite sure what the truth is anymore, but as long as the lawyers can afford another Porsche, who gives a? Even though he’s been dead 26 years now, it seems that life in the Zappaverse is still every bit as complex, twisty-turny and uncompromisingly difficult as the man’s own music: one gets the feeling, however, that he would have liked it precisely this way, and simply greeted it with a wry chuckle and a trademark “heyyyyy”…before shrugging and lighting another stogie.
More to the point, in 1990’s Real Frank Zappa Book, he even predicts (albeit in abstract and vague terms) a time when he and other rock musicians will no longer be around, and when tours such as these will be commonplace: as ever, he was scarily on the ball, not just America’s greatest modern composer but its finest soothsayer. Not that the show consists just of a hologrammatic Frank: that really would be a ripoff, although conversely, the fact that less than 800 punters have pootled along to Slippery Hall tonight would seem to suggest that the precise content of the show has been badly lost in translation somewhere along the way, and a lot of prospective ticket-buyers have stayed away believing that’s precisely what’s on offer. A shame, because had they turned up, they’d have witnessed the tightest, most badass combo currently touring anywhere in the world: a crack cavalcade of ex-Mothers featuring Robert Martin (keyboards/vocals) Ray White (rhythm guitar/vocals) Ed Mann (vibes/marimba) Scott Thunes (bass) and Mike Keneally (lead guitar/synth/vocals) , superbly complemented by the drumming talents of one Joe Travers, who though he never actually played with FZ is the chief custodian of his vault and back catalog.
In those terms, therefore, what we get is still very much a hard-hitting, fist-punching air-guitaring live rock’n’roll show, with possibly the heaviest bass sound I’ve ever experienced outside doom metaaaaal and stoner rock gigs: it’s just the set-up that’s noticeably different. With the two halves of the sextet arranged at opposite ends of the stage, both perched atop glowing blue podiums, the majority of the centre stage is reserved for the ginormous 3-D screen and projector featuring “Frank” himself: this in turn means that when the “great man”, such as “he” is, makes his first appearance amidst an ever-changing background of cloud-like animations reciting the lyric to Cosmik Debris, you’re quite literally pinned back into your seat by the immenseness of it all. As in, like, wow, this is impressive.
Pretty soon, however, you do realise that the description of the show as “a hologrammatic 3D experience” is slightly misleading. Sure, several extremely realistic simulations of Frank appear at various junctures, at one point even strutting down a virtual podium to widdle a virtual solo on Apostrophe and at another dancing, frugging and suggestively bump’n’grinding its way through the ribald lyric of Dina-Moe Hummm. And, credit where credit’s due, the figure’s lips move in perfect synchronicity with the recorded vocals. Nonetheless, there’s still far more emphasis on animation throughout than actual projection, converting the Moustachioed One into a variety of exploding, eye-swiveling, stop-motion cartoon images not unlike those featured in 1982’s Baby Snakes movie: it’s this that takes precedence on the likes of Montana, Peaches En Regalia and Stink-Foot (the latter featuring a montage of classic images from the ‘Fido’ (arf arf) and ‘Python boot’ figures through to the legendary “Zappa on the crappa” photo) and put together, the finished product undeniably bears more resemblance to yer standard “multi-media” show than anything intimated in the advertisements.
On the other hand, it’s frivolously fun, beautifully and lovingly constructed and (despite the odd technological snafu) stunning to look at: the live footage from the Roxy era in particular, first incorporated during Penguin In Bondage, blends seamlessly with the assorted other elements, creating an underlying “complete piece” rather than what could have potentially been a series of irksomely disparate strands. Of perhaps less note (and indeed slightly more concern) are the number of tunes, particularly Zomby Woof, Why Does It Hurt When I Pee and Father O’Blivion (although the latter is, as Kenneally points out, not the track of the same title from Apostrophe and actually features at least three pieces later reworked by FZ under other names including the opening verse of Inca Roads) played live with little or no added projections of any kind: surely, all that’s really giving us is a Banned From Utopia gig with delusions of grandeur? Which, at £40-60 a ticket, is surely stronging it a bit.
That said, the first movement of the last-named does feature a skillfully-arranged montage of album covers for the nascent fan newly introducing themselves to Frank’s ginormous recorded output: as Kenneally says, “for anyone who wants to get into Frank, but finds themselves saying the same thing I hear from so many people- that they ‘wouldn’t know where to start because there’s so much of it’ – simply choose the LP artwork you like the most, and begin there” And he’s quite right too. It’s also equally true that once one has delved in, they’ll find sounds for all tastes and moods- and tonight, from the atonal free jazz/musique concrete of Dangerous Kitchen to the high-energy New Wave disco of City Of Tiny Lites and “time signature in the key of what the fuck” horror movie parody Cheepnis, much effort has been undertaken to demonstrate this.
Sure, it doesn’t always work: Ahmet Zappa’s guest spoken word/participation slot, obviously designed in honour of his Dad’s notorious impromptu audience-baitings, is considerably less effective on a cold Monday night in a third-full Midlands theatre in 2019 than it would have been in a sold-out Californian auditorium in 1977, and despite deliberately pulling the prettiest girl out of the audience (who I’m not entirely convinced wasn’t a “plant”) and coercing her humorously into performing a duet with an imaginary male singer by the name of “Huw J’Bolles” (oh how we chuckled) the whole thing drags on way too long and ultimately falls flat. I’m clearly not the only one who thinks this either, with several fans wandering off to the bar and missing the eventual song involved (a mangled and near-unrecognisable Dead Girls Of London) as a result: nevertheless, AZ’s parting comment- “I miss my Dad…I miss my Mom…music is the best” is undoubtedly sincere.
Like several of the most retrospectively interesting football matches of our time, these gigs will undoubtedly be regarded with hindsight as games of two halves (Brian): in their more plodding, self-indulgent moments, such as What’s New In Baltimore, the cumulative effect of the preceding weekend’s liquid libations are felt to almost eye-closing effect (you can’t blame the band for that, you dispsomaniac– Ed) but at their peak, such as final encore Camarillo Brillo (hologram once more fully restored to its bopping eye-popping best) I’m experiencing that peculiar mixture of sadness, sentimentality and pure joy that only prime Zappa can arouse in me, and feeling very sorry for all the John Savage-reading hipsters (jeez, not her again) still sat in their ivory towers denying they enjoy his work in preference to the slightly-overrated, if still brilliant, Beefheart.
I certainly know which side I’m on, anyway: as for choosing allegiances in the Dweezil-vs-Ahmet debate, on the other hand, I’m staying strictly neutral, as in the absence of the man himself- sure, holograms may one day be sentient inna ‘Rimmer’ stylee, but not for some time yet- the chance to hear his music played by as many qualified performers as possible, whether it be the Muffin Men, the Zappateers, Zappatistas, Wrong Object, Banned From Utopia, Grandmothers Of Invention (now retired) or either of his son’s “heritage” presentations, should be firmly and positively encouraged. You never know, the Turtles may even turn up next year, and then we could all be happy together…
DARIUS THE CENTRAL DREWETINIZER
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