I went along to Hamer Hall last night to see Zappa Plays Zappa with a touch of trepidation, nervous that it would be a tacky cash-in on front man Dweezil Zappa's father's legacy, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The three hour show was filled with tracks from all over Zappa's career, played by seven to nine musicians (depending on the song) who each excelled at their craft.Highlights from the band include everythingist Scheila Gonzalez's (Ray Parker Jr, Nancy Wilson, Billy Preston) dual sax solo, or her one hand flute, one hand piano solo. Drummer Joe Travers' (Duran Duran, Billy Idol, Lisa Loeb) ballsy, but not too long, drum solo, vocalist Ray White's improvised song based around shouted suggestions from the audience and of course Steve Vai.
Now Steve Vai (who deserves a paragraph of his own) needs no introduction amongst technical guitar nerds. Myself being a technical guitar wankery fan I am in two minds about Vai. Sure he's a great player, but for some reason I don't like him. Not so this time. Backed by this amazing band, Vai's presence kicked it up a notch or ten. He was simply amazing.
Vai and White are the two musicians in this band who had played with Frank Zappa and it was more than just a little amusing to see Steve Vai run his fingers through his hair at precisely the moment a young Vai did so on the big screen.
Speaking of said screen, a couple of times throughout the show Frank would appear on there and play with the band. This was at its most impressive when during 'Cosmik Debris' he and son Dweezil traded solos in this extended version.
As Dweezil looked at the imagery of his father on the screen, you could swear Frank was looking right back at him, and while the younger of the two must've seen and played along with this video a thousand times before it felt like they were trading solos on the spur of the moment.
The show was a glowing tribute to Frank Zappa, showcasing the man's bizarre sense of humour, brilliant guitar work and genius sense of melody and song structure and while no, this isn't the same as seeing the man himself, it's as close as anyone is going to get any time soon.
