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The ZPZ portion of the show was indeed awesome. The only detraction being the constant distraction of many LC fans constantly coming and going from their seats, getting ever more blasted and distracting those of us trying to enjoy a fabulous ZPZ show. This is the first show I have heard Dweezil's new guitar rig and it sounds incredible, and his playing has evolved in leaps and bounds to match since I first saw this band at the Warfield in 2006. Unfortunately this was a compressed time-line show with another band to get on stage, and a very long (but very welcome and wonderful!) Billy The Mountain. I would have gladly traded having Les come on stage in King Kong for Black Napkins which was on the set list in the encore, but dropped from the show no doubt due to time constraints. That would have sounded amazing on that new rig in that place. After Inca (which featured both an amazing Dweez solo along with a smokin' Aaron Arntz keyboard solo as well) the Dweezil solos were amazing, but fewer and shorter than the past three ZPZ shows I have attended. The band was incredible and just keep getting better and better. Jaime Kime's King Kong solo complete with some Hendrixesque guitar abuse along with slide playing on Bamboozled was outstanding. Despite it being a Claypool night, Pete Griffin was the best bass player in the house to my ears that night. Ray took a solo on Dweezil's SG in Cosmic Debris with the Dweez workin' the pedal that was an amazing collaboration. Joe and Billy were tireless and spot on--fabulous playing! Schiela, wow, you never cease to amaze me. Vocals, keyboards, virtuoso woodwinds playing, and a couple of good crushing Muffin Man gong crashes when Billy shared his fun. Thank you all for a NYE I will cherish forever! The band was hightailing it outathere so no meet-n-greets as they often do, but my wife did manage to get one of the super-busy road crew (thank you!!!!) to give her Dweezil's set list which reads as follows:
1. Inca Roads
2. Cosmic Debris
3. Magic Fingers
4. Carolina
5. Billy The Mountain
6. Flakes
7. Broken Hearts Are For Assholes
8. Bamboozled By Love
9. King Kong - maybe Les Claypool Joins In (he did as mentioned above)
10. Willie The Pimp - End Of Show
Encore:
May open up for suggestions from audience (did not happen--time constraints I imagine)
11. Black Napkins (did not happen--I wish it did!)
12. Muffin Man (searing hot Dweezil solo, the band was just getting warmed up, and then it was sadly cut short)
The day was one of "upgrades" and surprises for my wife and I. We arrived at the hotel mid-afternoon, about a block and a half from the opera house, and were "upgraded" to a jacuzzi room. The next great surprise was finding bottles of "Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets" beer from Lagunitas (which I still can not find in Santa Cruz) at a little Hayes Valley grocery store. We arrived pretty early to the Opera House, what an amazing venue!!!! We found our seats, only to find the view of the stage almost totally blocked by the sound and lights boards. We sat down and no sooner than I was asking my wife if we could swap seats part way through the show to share the misery (one seat was much worse than the other) an usher comes along saying "follow me" and proceeds to walk us down to an excellent pair of 5th row center aisle seats and swaps our tickets out! We were blown away with that upgrade!!!! Thank you SF War Memorial Opera House!!!!!
ZPZ was certainly the high point of the evening for us. The only thing that sucked worse than Claypool that night (and yes, he sucked) was Tim Fite. I really tried to be open minded and I seldom walk out on any musical shows, but we were clock watching and by the time the balloons dropped we both could not wait to leave. So around 12:05 or so, we did just that, much to the shock and chagrin of the previously distracting and detracting LC fans surrounding us. I was hoping for some amazing music with all the hype from some Zappa board fans and really had no idea what to expect since I had never payed much attention to Primus or their gendra of music. Yes, he has amazing chops, and yes, he is innovative. But that monotonous primal beat with "music" that was all a blur of ultra-loud sameness, combined with ultra-blasted twenty-somethings twisting and frugging had me thinking I was experiencing a Tinseltown Rebellion moment...in fact I was. Really boring, really bad. Amazing chops, yeah, but as someone who has seen Stanley on numerous occasions since he was 18 years old playing with RTF, sorry, not even in the same league. In fact there are countless bass players I have enjoyed over the years I would rather see in a band than this guy. Like I said before, the best bass player in the house that night, to my ears, was Pete Griffin. The set began with "fans" chanting "Primus Sucks" and Primus was anything like what I heard night before last, well they were right!
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.Next time you play in S.F. have Mirv jam with you.