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Date - June 30, 1991
Budapest, Hungary
© 1998 Eddie Persson
The show.
Me and my ex-girlfriend were in Budapest on holiday. One day downtown Budapest I saw a poster that said "Taban jazzfestival, with special guest Frank Zappa." I didn't beleve it! I ran around in recordstores and tried to find out if it was true. It was, everybody I spoke to told me that it was the truth. I couldn't belive it anyway.
Anyway, my girlfriend and I went to the park where the show was going to be. A stage was built and we were the first people in the audience. It was abuot 10 o'clock AM. A couple of hungaryan freaks came. They had FZ t-shirts on so I felt more sure that it really was true. I tried to speak with them but they didn't understand so much english. At least I understood that this is going to happen, FZ is in town! they showed me pictures of FZ from the airport the night before.
By noon, things started to happen. Movement backstage, people were beginning to get excited, something was going on. Suddenly people ran backstage to welcome FZ as he was getting out of the limo. He entered the stage, as the king that he was, and the soundcheck started. All my pictures is from the soundcheck. There were four musicans on stage excluding FZ. Drummer, base, keyboard and another guitarist. They were all Hungarian jazzmusicans. Gail Zappa stood at the side of the stage during the soundcheck and so did the bodyguard from the 88-tour (Dave?).
FZ left again and there were nothing to do but wait for the concert to begin.
The festival started of with a lot of jazz-groups and FZ was the big event that night. After a very, very, very long time he came! He and the band from the soundcheck didn«t play any FZ-tunes. The band was playing in the background and our common friend played the sologuitar. I cried.
I tried to take some pictures but I had no flash so they didn't get so well. The FZ-gig were about an hour long and then it was over. After the concert I went up to the stage and found one of FZ's smoked cigarettes. I took it as a memory of him and I still have it.
You can look at the pictures from the soundcheck here.
Eddie
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