Frank Zappa: 4/18/1980

This was my one and only time seeing the great Frank Zappa. He was playing two shows at the Sunrise Musical Theatre, and my friend Mark and I had tickets to the late show, which was starting at 11:30 pm. Zappa at midnight just seems appropriate.

The lineup for this tour was:

• Frank Zappa
• Ike Willis
• Ray White
• Arthur Barrow
• David Logeman
• Tommy Mars

We were pretty young at the time, and neither of us had a car, so we had to negotiate rides from the parental units. This proved somewhat challenging, but after some finagling, we got it worked out.

At the time, I liked Zappa, but was not a huge fan. I only owned one of his albums: “Roxy & Elsewhere,” but I liked the record a lot and it spent a lot of time on my turntable. But seeing Frank live, I realized just how frighteningly awesome a guitarist he was. He just came out on stage and unleashed an avalanche of intricate guitar work that frankly made my jaw drop (pun intended). And even though he didn’t play anything from the Roxy album, the show was excellent and started me down the path of really appreciating Zappa’s musical genius.

Here’s the setlist. Rock on!

Setlist:

• Chunga’s Revenge
• Keep It Greasey
• Outside Now
• City Of Tiny Lights
• A Pound For A Brown (incl. Louie Louie, q: Inca Roads, I Love Lucy theme, Mo ‘N Herb’s Vacation)
• Cosmik Debris
• You Didn’t Try To Call Me
• I Ain’t Got No Heart
• Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up
• He Used To Cut The Grass (with vocals!)
• Easy Meat
• Mudd Club
• The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
• Heavenly Bank Account
• Dancin’ Fool
• Bobby Brown
• Black Napkins