I had been eager to see Zappa Plays Zappa again after seeing them at Summer Camp 2010. Dweezil Zappa, eldest son of the late, great Frank Zappa, started playing touring and playing his father's music in 2006 as an attempt to bring the sound to a younger audience. It certainly worked for me.
The set included songs mostly settling around Frank's work in the mid-to-late seventies including "Don't You Ever Wash that Thing?" and "Dancing Fool." The group also opted to play "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" through "St. Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast" from the album Apostrophe('), which ZPZ played in its entirety throughout their tour last year. Luckily for me, I missed them on the last tour.
Electric violin great and member of Return to Forever IV, Jean-Luc Ponty, had played with Frank Zappa in the early seventies and came out to perform "Fifty-Fifty" from the album Over-Nite Sensation. There were some really incredible moments of playing as Jean-Luc and Dweezil went into a call-and-response kind of solo.
I first thought of Zappa Plays Zappa as a novelty act. After witnessing the really supreme ability of not only Dweezil, but every member of the group, they have established themselves in my mind as a truly incredible act to see.
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