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Did you attend this show at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Providence?

Dweezil and the band would love to read your reviews.

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

Mikey
Zappa.com Webmeister

Songs Played; First release album:

1. Cosmik Debris; Apostrophe'
2. Wild Love; Sheik Yerbouti
3. Cheepnis; Roxy & Elsewhere
4. Lonely Little Girl; We're Only In It for the Money
5. City of Tiny Lites; Sheik Yerbouti
6. Dumb All Over; You Are What You Is
7. What's New in Baltimore; FZ Meets Mothers of Pretention
8. Joe's Garage; Joe's Garage
9. Wind Up Workin' in a Gas Stn; Zoot Allures
10. San Ber'dino; One Size Fits All
11. Dupree's Paradise; Perfect Stranger
12. Uncle Remus; Apostrophe'
13. Willie the Pimp; Bongo Fury
14. Peaches en Regalia; Hot Rats
15. Freak Out Medley including
"How Could I Be Such a Fool"
and "I Ain't Got No Heart"; Freak Out!
16. Pygmy Twylyte; Roxy & Elsewhere
17. Dog Breath; Uncle Meat
18. G-Spot Tornado; Jazz From Hell
19. Illinois Enema Bandit; Live in New York
Encore-1. I'm The Slime; Over-Nite Sensation
Encore-2. Muffin Man; Bongo Fury

They skipped the set break. I guess they must have been in a hurry to get out of town!

Performers: Dweezil Zappa (guitar), Ray White (vocals, guitar), Jaime Kime (guitar), Pete Griffin (bass guitar), Shiela Gonzalez (saxes, keyboard, etc.), Aaron Arntz (keyboard, trumpet), Billy Hulting (percussion), Joe Travers (drums, vocals)

Magic phrases: hot dogs and pie; squash

Once again, Dweezil has conjured up an excellent concert of his father's music. Video and audio of his father accompanied, as I recall, Cosmik Debris, Dumb All Over, the Illinois Enema Bandit, and Muffin Man. It was great to see Frank performing with the band, but I'm glad it wasn't overdone. Any more than four times would have seemed a bit like cheating on the live element of the performance. Frank's video solos were well chosen. It was cool to see Dweezil playing live on the very same guitar that his Dad was playing in the video for one of the numbers. Dweezil's solos and those of Frank were the highlights of the evening, but the rest of the band excelled as well, especially in Dupree's Paradise. Ray White, Aaron Arntz, Sheila Gonzalez, and Billy Hulting were especially impressive, at various moments. Ray White has a great voice and delivery for bluesy numbers.

I am very grateful that Dweezil is keeping Frank's music alive and playing it with integrity and authenticity. Any carping on my part therefore seems ungrateful, but I'll make some suggestions, by way of feedback. The amplification for the microphone for the vocals for Willie the Pimp needed to be turned up. As it was, the lyrics were excessively buried underneath the instrumentation.

For me personally, the playlist could have been better (even limiting possibilities to items the band has been playing during this year's tour). Neither Cosmik Debris nor Wild Love are among my favorites. On the other hand, Cheepnis, City of Tiny Lites, Dumb All Over, What's New in Baltimore, Joe's Garage, Wind Up Workin' in a Gas Station, San Ber'dino, Dupree's Paradise, Uncle Remus, Willie the Pimp, Peaches en Regalia, Pygmy Twylyte, Dog Breath (from Uncle Meat) (which I believe Dweezil erroneously introduced as "Dog Meat"), G-Spot Tornado, Illinois Enema Bandit, and Muffin Man were all excellent choices. All of these were also played very well, although this night's performance of Peaches was neither the best nor the worst version I've heard. There are much better choices from We're Only In It For the Money than "Lonely Little Girl." Also, I would have GREATLY preferred the medley from Absolutely Free to the relatively inferior Freak Out! medley. America Drinks and Goes Home is, in my opinion, the greatest Frank Zappa song from the first two albums and I would have loved to hear it played. I'm the Slime was a weak selection for the first encore piece. I was very much hoping to hear Yo' Mama (especially the guitar interlude played by either Frank or Dweezil) at some time during the evening. This group has played Black Napkins at some tour stops and I would very much have liked to hear it, as well. I guess I shouldn't complain with sixteen out of the twenty-one selections to my liking, but I hated to miss out on America Drinks and Yo' Mama.

Dweezil is not yet quite the guitarist that his Dad was at his peak, but, then again, even Frank wasn't always the guitarist that he was when he was at his peak, either. I'd say Dweezil is as good as his Dad was around the mid to late seventies and has a possibility of ultimately matching his father's prowess at his peak, from around 1981-1985. I don't mean that as a slight to Dweezil because very few, if any, guitarists have ever been capable of the compositional improvisation that Frank exhibited at his best. Dweezil is already a superlative performer by any other standard. The care with which Dweezil prepares his young musicians to play Frank's exceptionally difficult music is very evident and highly commendable. It was amazing, for example, to hear the group's excellent performance the rapid and complex synthesizer piece, G-Spot Tornado.

Anyway, GREAT concert! I hope you return to Providence over and over again. My group and I (we were nine, this time) will return as often as you do. Bravo, Dweezil! We all love you and your work!

re: last...

i have theset list from last nights show....no Wild Love...
So how'd you like the show?

Set The qouhog free....

Awsome show...

My 4th time seeing ZPZ. I had been looking forward to the show for months. I love seeing shows at PPAC, such a great venue. Had great seats 3rd row stage right. Really got to see what Jamie brings to the show as second guitarist. Pete is always a blast to watch also. Got the new DVD (a european PAL version)which just cooks. The Trouble Every Day jam is off the charts!

Got to the show a few minutes late. I'm pretty sure they were playing Florentine Pogen when i came in. Which isn't on the above setlist. Ray White was amazing. City of Tiny Lights was great to hear. This is the clearest sounding concert i have ever been to. Great acoustics at PPAC.

After the show Dweezil signed my DVD and i got to take a picture with him. So cool of him to stick around and meet people. I wish Ray White or on other tours Vai or Napolean would have done that. Oh well. Got to shake hands with Jamie on the way out and thank him for the music. All and all another great ZPZ show. Can't wait until next year!

This was only our second show, and I truly hope you guys keep comin' around here...I was able to bring my 13 year old daughter again, and we were both amazed yet again...we somehow got first row tickets-talk about getting a quality musical education. I'm truly thanful that she wants to see "dads music" instead of what kids her age are into...Florentine Pogen was a perfect segue into cheepnis, and the rest of the set just flowed nicely. Scheila and Ray were exceptional and everyone seemed to be a littlle looser than the earlier Boston show (BofA Pavilion) The audience was better than the Boston crowd too...Kudos to your sound crew - excellent job (vocals get a tad lost up close being off line from the house sound system - would a couple of monitors up front help that ? Anyway, thanks for a great show; dad would definately be proud. Hope to see you all again soon, a bit closer to Boston. Mark & Liz

O.K., the second piece was Florentine Pogen, not Wild Love. My mistake.

I think it's clear to all the guitarists out there that Dweezil has surpassed his father as a guitarist. Frank was great but Dweezil has gone to the next level (or farther).

The show was amazing. I've listened to FZ music for years but never heard it performed live till Sunday night in RI. The performance exceeded all expectations. The songs they chose were a wonderfull mix and everyone in the audience seemed to really appreciate what was going on. This type of music performed at this level is truly rare.

I'd have a hard time chosing who my favorite musician was in the show. They were all wonderful. Kudos to them all!

I could not wait to get my hands on my guitars after the show. It was inspirational!

I think as far as feeling goes, you cant beat Frank. Dweezil no doubt is far better technically than Frank could have ever been. Some of the runs he plays are parts that were not even played on guitar originally. Some times i feel in his solos hes almost too technical, but he sure does make it look easy to play some of the parts. Frank just had a great atonal style of soloing that is hard to replicate, Dweezil comes damn close though.

Technical virtuosity is one thing and, no doubt, what guitarists can better appreciate than other listeners. By his own assessment, Frank Zappa was not a virtuoso guitarist. Frank's special forte was compositional improvisation – spontaneously creating sprawling atonal canvasses on the impulse of the moment. Listening to one of Frank's great improvisations is as close as any mortal can come to climbing inside the head of a composer as he is working, to experience directly his creative process. Not being a guitarist myself, I am less interested in technical virtuosity than the artistic merits of the music that's created.

About his improvisational process, Zappa once wrote, ". . . in order to engage in the type of improvisational escapades that seem natural to me, I must be accompanied by a 'specialized' rhythm section. A soloist choosing to work in this odd style ultimately winds up as a hostage – he can go only as far into the "experimental zones" as his rhythm section will allow him to go. The problem lies in the polyrhythms. The chances of finding a drummer, a bass player and a keyboard player who can conceive of those polyrhythms – let alone identify them fast enough to play a complementary figure on the moment – are not good."

Zappa supposedly considered Vinnie Colaiuta the best drummer to ever play for any of his bands and, especially, the one most able to interact spontaneously and creatively with Zappa's experiments in polyrhythms during his solos. Colaiuta was part of the 1979-80 band and I personally feel that Zappa's solos from that era were his most magnificent because of his special synergy with Calaiuta. Another peak year for Frank was 1984, when he was playing, according to his own count, about forty solos per week for six months.

Fortunately, with Zappa playing Zappa, we get the best of both worlds – compositional genius and technical virtuosity.

Well said. I dont have many shows from that period. Id like to find some. Any you suggest?

I was at the show with my 15 year old son who I have brainwashed into a huge Zappa fan. He is a drummer and has the same passion for great music as I have always had.

It’s so cool to see him interested in more than the vanilla flavored music/crap the radio offers these days. He was truly captivated by the performance we saw onstage.

There will always be the guy in the audience yelling for “Titties and Beer”; I don’t think he will be back next year. You have made a lifer out of my son and me though.

Thanks for a great show!

Reply to Eyebrows:

"Shut Up 'n Play Your Guitar" is a magnificent three-disc compilation of Zappa guitar improvisations. Vinnie Colaiuta is the drummer for all but two, I believe, and Bozzio does excellent work as drummer for those ones. This is a superlative album, especially for those who want a total immersion experience with Zappa's compositional improvisation at its best. A later 2-disc album, called simply "Guitar," is very nearly as good and covers the entire period from 1979-1984. Then, there's also "Trance-fusion," with solos mainly from 1988.

The only standard album featuring the 1979-80 band, "Tinsel Town Rebellion," is, unfortunately, not an especially good one, because of an excess of audience interaction tracks and new versions of old songs already done better on previous albums. I can't recommend it to other than Zappa completists. "Joe's Garage" is also the 1979-80 band and has some excellent guitar solos interspersed here and there throughout a rather longish rock-opera, of sorts. It is a musically strong album, but with a really dumb story and mostly inane lyrics.

Whadda U, NUTS!!! Dweezil's better than Frank? Where you been livin,' Receda?

It took a few days for it all to sink in but that was a great show. We were right down front in the pit. The only complaint I have is we were sure packed in I am 6'3 and 300 my bud is over 6"8 and there was another big guy on my other side. Kozey is the word I am looking for. The show was just awsome The kid came to play Sunday night that's for sure. The band was tight and I diddn't missed a shot all night...well maybe the whole Quohog thing got by them a bit. I was not getting the feeling they new it is a clam, but funny as hell anyhow. I was in the perfect seat directly in line with Dweezil's stage moniters his playing is still ringing through my head 6 days later. I have no memory or a better performance musically in the 33 years have been going to shows. You guys had better come back next year or else we will send an angry herd of Quohogs after ya!!!.

Great show, Great time, Thank You, Thank You, Thank You...

Shiela You are a doll

P.S. Ray should have come out farther out on stage with the wig on it was a scream.

Frank IS proud of his son

Providence was our third show this tour, and we were mesmerized again! My wife was very pleased to hear Peaches En Regalia, which we missed in Atlantic City the night before.

Live music is our vice, and we see a lot of shows, but when we first saw ZPZ here in Albuquerque in August, we were blown away. I can't remember the last time I saw this quality level of musicianship AND this much fun onstage at the same time. And then there's the music itself! The best show we've seen all year without a doubt.

We had some free airline tickets to use before expiration, and Heidi found she could get 3rd row seats in AC and front row in Providence, so she knew where we were going. Excellent shows, both of them! Hearing a couple of different tunes each night is great! And Scheila, we loved your look in Providence! At first, Heidi thought you were a different person.

Now if we can make it up to Denver Friday night...