Frank At The Old Place
18 October 1975
by James Diesel

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In the late '60's and early '70's The Atlanta Municipal Auditorium was the venue that housed almost all rock concerts in Atlanta. This building also hosted the circus twice a year plus the weekly NWA wrestling events. It was built in 1909. It seated maybe 3000 at the most and in my opinion did not have a bad seat in the house. It had a great ambience that only these old venues had..... Looking back over my ticket stub collection I saw a great number of acts for the era there including Ouicksilver Messenger Service, The Allman Brother's Band, Emerson Lake and Palmer, King Crimson and almost any other act you could name at the time that came through Atlanta.....

When tickets went on sale you had to act fast.... In my case when I heard on the radio that tickets were on sale for Frank Zappa at The Municipal Auditorium.... well..... I didn't act fast enough.... When I got to the Ticketron.... The girl said the Zappa show had sold out about an hour ago..... She said hang around though because she had heard a midnight show was going to be announced very soon.... She made a call and turned around and smiled and said a midnight show had been added..... How many tickets do you need? FOUR I blurted out....... Man this was gonna be great.

Saturday October 18, 1975 couldn't have come soon enough..... My brother Thonza and couple more of our friends took off early in hopes of nabbing a scalper's ticket to the first show.... No such luck though..... so we rode around the city and came back about 10:30..... As we walked up to the front doors.... the inside doors to the Auditorium were open and you could see straight through to the stage...... There were Napolean Murphy Brock and FZ in plain view singing the out choruses to San Ber'dino.... It just looked wild in there. The first show let out and soon we lined up and filed in..... We had great first row seats in the balcony on the side..... perfect angle for viewing..... The Mike Greene Band opened...... They were pretty popular around the southeast in the mid '70s.... Now he is Michael Greene.... you know.... the guy who runs the Grammys...... After a nice sounding short set, Mike and the band left the stage and Zappa's equipment was moved back out..... Lights dimmed and...................

12:05

The first strains as what we now know as Pedro's Dowry flowed from the speakers. A wierd type of ballet started as Napolean, Terry Bozzio and Roy Estrada danced back and forth across the stage.... Then each ran to his station and a keyboard player came out...... which turned out to be Andre Lewis. The band started into a blues vamp with Napolean and Andre bantering back and forth..............

Frank Zappa then came on to the stage with his famous Gibson SG.... He introduced the band and then they broke into Stinkfoot.... I remember them going straight into Dirty Love and then a shocker as Apostrophe featuring Roy Estrada was played. Its been a long time but I swear he matched Jack Bruce's rendention note for note.... Great...... I can still see Napolean dropping to his knees as he sang "You Broke My Heart" from How Could I Be Such A Fool.... What still sticks with me to this day though is how great Frank's guitar sounded on Black Napkins... "a new tune they were working on"....... Frank's sound just rocked the building...... It was so loud but so good.... if you know what I mean..... This was one of those shows that was so good that it went by really fast.... Also this was the first time I had got to see Terry Bozzio as the Spring '75 Bongo Fury tour did not come through Atlanta.. I just kept yelling at my brother time and time again "LOOK AT THAT FUCKIN' DRUMMER"... After he finished his drum solo, Frank had been sitting on a stool watching him... Frank turned to the audience and said "That wasn't a drum solo, That was a piece of music".. He turned back to Terry and nodded his approval.. Maybe this was the Black Page.... I just don't know... As FZ and the boys finished Camarillo Brillo and left the stage, thunderous applause followed them...... The guys came back out and did Chunga's Revenge as I remember with another great solo by Frank and one by Napolean too...... They finished this show just like the early one with San Ber'dino featuring Napolean and Frank putting on these giant green sunglasses and singing "Spend the rest of their lives in San Ber'dino"...... The band finished with a great big badass note and the stage lights started flashing with Pedro's Dowry starting again....

After the house lights came up, we sat there for a while just saying how great it was... The time was close to 3:00 am..... They just don't make old venues like The Municipal Auditorium anymore and they don't make bands like the '75 Mothers either!!

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