Zappa Plays Zappa Plays Sacramento: review and photos

Sacramento's Crest Theater

The venue: The Crest Theater in the heart of downtown Sacramento. (Maybe it IS the heart of downtown Sacramento.) A beautiful, vintage theater, in a building that was originally constructed in 1912. The seating is steeply raked, everyone has a good view of the stage (unless you're on the front row right at the side, and the performers happen to have a giant stack of speakers in front of you). The seats are comfortable as armchairs, and there's room between the rows for standing and dancing without thinking you'll fall on the people in the row in front (there were guys in some of the upper rows last night testing this out through the entire show and obviously having a really good time).

The show: Zappa Plays Zappa

The audience: ranging from young, to not-so-young, balance tipped towards the upper range; long-time fans of Frank Zappa and his music, kids that had been raised with his music, and Dweezil's own followers. I hope there were some newcomers to Zappa.There should have been.

Equipment afficionados looking over the huge set of guitar pedals and controls. Guys queuing to purchase Zappa t-shirts and CDs. Throughout the show, two gentleman dancing and gyrating through the entire show right at the back, right at the top of the rows of seats in the Crest.

Dweezil Zappa

Snippets of conversation overheard. "I traded all my original Zappa collection for knives. What an idiot! I was a kid! Knives!!!"  Another: "I was so hungry for the music. I wanted to know each note. I tried to transcribe it."  (It wasn't Steve Vai, though it could have been. I checked.)  

Dweezil Zappa

And the music:  Roxy & Elsewhere, in its entirety--and that was before the intermission. The crowd had their money's worth. A night full.

Scheila Gonzalez

Dweezil Zappa's band do his father's legacy justice. It's such intricate, deeply-layered, intense and complex music. 






The fun and jokes are an extra, a freeby, thrown in because words are needed, and you might just sometimes think you were listening to some arty-farty jazz if they weren't there. Just don't ever mistake Zappa for comedy. This is music, this is rock, (some call it "jazz-rock")... this is special. This is Zappa.

Kurt Morgan

I find myself counting, working out the time signature. It's not so complex, it's twos and fours and it's countable but... it's layered over and over and over with so many other rhythms, unique combinations of notes and song-like sequences and twists and turns and how the heck do these crazy musicians ever remember all that???? 

Chris Norton

(Many years of work my dear, many years of work.)

Ben Thomas and Ryan Brown

Our cat is called Muffin. You know where that came from.

(I wonder what would have happened if Frank Zappa arrived on the music scene today, instead of late sixties/seventies. Today's commercial world is less tolerant of musical invention and the market appears to crave conformity. The world still needs Zappa. Do your kids, your grandkids, a favour, and introduce them. There are plenty of albums to choose from.)

Ben Thomas

I envy one of my long-time-England friends, who saw Frank in concert in Sweden. I am happy that I saw Dweezil and Zappa Plays Zappa last night. They made the music real. How many albums are there? Sixty? That will keep Zappa  Plays Zappa going for a few more years yet. I'll see you again.

Go see, go hear, Zappa Plays Zappa. They'll be playing near you--don't miss the tour. 


Zappa Plays Zappa are: Dweezil Zappa (guitar), Scheila Gonzalez (sax, vocals), Ben Thomas (vocals, trombone, recipient of diploma from Phelan High School), Chris Norton (keyboards and vocals), Ryan Brown (drums) and Kurt Morgan (bass).

For more Toon's Tunes photos from the show, go to http://alisontoon.com/zappaplayszappa to see the full gallery.