Zappanale report, phaze 2.
by Jon Naurin

| Return to Index |

One of the many nice things about a happening such as this is getting to
meet so many like-minded people (well, at least people who share your
obsession). I've spent much time with some of the people I got to know at
the Holland Festival 2000, and with some of the few affz folks who were
there - Charles Ulrich and his wife Donna, Hasi and BengoFury, all very
nice people. Never got an opportunity to say hi to Steve Auerbach
(everytime I saw you, you were on stage, Steve).

Saturday, Jul 27:

Before the musical events started, there was a big ceremony in central
Bad Doberan: the dedication and unveiling of a Zappa statue and opening
of an FZ exhibit. Charles, Donna and I went into town early to eat lunch
first, but instead ended up at a press-conference. With empty stomachs,
we then watched the ceremony. Speeches en masse, first by the major and a
bunch of local politicians, then by Bob & Candy Zappa, Bill Harris
(childhood friend of Frank, today a Hollywood reporter), the sculptor and
probably lots of people I forget. Also a cool, short performance of Help
I'm A Rock/It Can't Happen Here by Don Preston, JCB, Roy Estrada,
Napoleon and Bob Harris. After the unveiling, all of the "important
people" went up to rub Frank's nose for good luck - in addition to
everyone already mentioned, this included Nigey Lennon and Pamela des
Barres.

After this we had to have lunch, which meant that we missed the first
band, Landplage. From what I've heard, they did German translations of
Zappa songs.

The first concert I saw was Pierrejean Gaucher/Christophe Godin, a french
guitar duo. A nice change to all the typical rock settings we'd seen the
day before. Really good playing too, and good song choices including
Sleep Dirt, The Idiot Bastard Son and a little bit of Sinister Footwear.
Ossi Duri is an italian band of teenagers, and with their age in mind,
it's hard not to be impressed. These boys can really play, and since Ike
is with them, they have strong vocals too. Still, there's something
missing. I thought the sound was rather bad, and they probably suffered
from playing the day after Project Object - we'd heard many of the same
songs before, with the same instrumental setting and the same vocalist.
Flawless musicianship, some nice song choices, but this didn't really
thrill me.

The next concert, however, did. "Ed Palermo Band - Nigey
Lennon/Tabacco/Candy Zappa" was yet another enigmatic band name, that I
didn't really know what to expect from. I never dared to hope that it
would have anything to do with Ed's Big Band, except for Ed himself, so
when I realized that the EP Band actually was 40% of the EPBB (five horns
+ keyboard, bass & drums), I was in heaven. This concert was to me, and
several people I spoke with, musically the highlight of the Zappanale.
Nothing but great songs, including RDNZL, Sleep Dirt, King Kong, Toads Of
The Short Forest, Directly From My Heart To You (with Candy Zappa on
vocals), Magdalena (with John Tabacco), Spider Of Destiny (with Thana
Harris!), Run Home Slow, Lucy's Seduction and We Are Not Alone. Candy
sang on at least two more songs - someone please remind me about which
ones! Let's Make The Water Turn Black?

I don't think many people knew what to expect from The Lewinskys either.
I knew Mike Keneally and Scott Thunes would be in it, which was exciting
enough for me. In addition to them, the band consisted of 4 girls (one of
which is Stacy Thunes, Scott's sister) who sang (one of them played sax
too) a male singer and a drummer. They normally don't have a Zappa
repertoire, but for this occasion they had. I Have Been In You, Jewish
Princess, Willie The Pimp (with JCB, as seen on the photo on
keneally.com) and Valley Girl are the songs I can remember, and all were
played and sang quite well. Valley Girl was the highlight, with Stacy
doing Moon's vocals, and another girl who was german, did some "Tal
Mädchen" talking too. I've always been a big fan of the bass playing on
this underrated song, and hearing Scott playing it here was wonderful.
Altogether, this was another great concert, very entertaining even though
it wasn't an all-Zappa set. Scott stayed in the background, just playing
great bass, which was enough for me.

The final concert was Ozric Tentacles from England, which was not my cup
of tea.

That's it for today, thank you for reading this far. Will try to write
the final part tomorrow.

- Jon

Check out the FZ concert tape database at
http://home.swipnet.se/fzshows

Return to Concert Tales Index

Don't forget to register to vote!

Send questions, comments, flames to stumark@earthlink.net

Planet Zappafrank logo courtesy of Chris Edwards