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Did you attend the ZPZ show at Jahrhunderthalle in Bochum?

Dweezil and the band love reading your reviews.

Please do not post in this thread if you did not attend the show.

Mikey
Zappa.com Webmeister

Hello Dweezil!

I attended the world premiere with your new lead-singer and I only can say that's unbelievable how to learn such complicate stuff in such a short time!
Ben, you 've been very dynamic on stage, especially your Mega(phon) - Solo I liked very much! Best part from Ben for me was : "More trouble"!

Schiela: Thx for your fantastic Solo in "Chungas Revenge!"

Also astonishing that the program includes so many new pieces, exceedingly beautiful: The guitar-soli in 'Mammy Anthem' ,'Montana' and 'Bamboozled'

Like always it was fantastic show with the many supernatural situations : Thank you so much you all!
Best greetings till "Eindhoven by YAWYI (Andreas Lehr from Münster/ Germany)
Set:

1. Mammy Anthem
2.Tiny lighs
3.Magic fingers
4.Dirty Love
5.Montana
6.Village of the sun
7.Echidna's Arf
8.Lucille
9 Outside now
10- Black Page Part 1 + 2
11. Bamboozled
12. Chingas Revenge
13. Orabge County
14.More Trouble every DAy
15. Peaches
16.Zomy Woof
17.Cosmik Debris
Willy the Pimp

What a great show!
It was my first ZPZ concert (I own the DVD, though) but most definately not my last. The new singer is amazing and totally made me forget there weren't any Zappa-veterans. The first song he sang was City Of Tiny Lites, a favorite of mine, so I was an instant fan.
All the other songs were great, too (I was especially glad to hear Willie The Pimp), sound was very good, nice venue, possibly one of the best bands on this planet - everything was just really really good!

The only downsides were Billy not being there and the absence of a younger audience that needs to be exposed to all this outstanding music (I'm 21 and me and my mates felt like children..).

And if Dweezil is reading this by any chance, there absolutely is no shame in screwing up Black Page #2 a few times when you're the only one playing that melody, so take it easy and don't be too hard on yourself - you rock, seriously!

I sincerely can't wait for my next ZPZ attendance and hope to see Ben again with a little more preparation-time!

All the best wishes to Dweezil, the band and everyone who has the pleasure to see them on this tour!

Hello there,

I really enjoyed the Bochum concert. It was interesting to see how the ZPZ-project developed. The last time I saw the band in fall 2007 and at that time the arrangements of the songs sticked very close to the arrangements we know from this or that recording.

This time it felt to me as if the band allowed itself to be a little more daring to combine colors, sounds and styles from different epoques and releases and created new space for improvisation.

Respecting the musical heritage on one hand and exploring the musical freedom within the compositions is for my taste the right way to go and I only can encourage the band to be more daring to explore all possible options.

Hearing a 1974 Village of the Sun version combined with a guitar solo that has the 1977/1978 flavour
sounds refreshing to my ears.

Listening to some classic Hot Rats arrangements that encounters modern equipment, electronic sounds and diverse
instrumentation and playing techniques is a great live concert experience and obviously fun for the players too.

Listening to the actual band gives space for imagination how far one still could go. Isn't the FZ heritage a big tool box
where one can find so many different versions that one never gets tired combining this with that.

Why not combine an early Torture Never Stops Beefheart Blues Version that dissolves into the Zoot allures Album Version and then finally mutates into the 78 or 88 live version? Why not crossbreed an early Any Downers or Easy Meat Version with a late one?

Why not incorporate some musical interludes like the Adams Family, Bartok, Knack, Devo, Blondie stuff and spice it with some unreleased Saddle Bags or rarely live performed songs like you did with this samll 200 Motel segment.

Well, what I wanna say is I find the options of the band are seemingly endless or at least very rich and for me as a listener it would be really challenging to see all this happening on stage.

It would be nice to hear what you think? How far would you go as a band and... would the audience really appreciate this?

All the best

Thorsten

PS: I liked the small setup of the band, though it was not intended in Bochum. I was thinking to myself, how would they sound as a power trio or as an all acoustic band?

Just to let you know ...