Frank Zappa - The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life (1991)

nlkink schreef:
Een hilarisch goed live album. Tot afgrijzen van mijn vrouw vond mijn destijds driejarige zoon deze CD ook fantastisch. Heb zo'n idee dat alle maffe arrangementen, geluiden en tempowisselingen bij een aantal kinderen zeer tot de verbeelding spreken.

The concert starts out at a high level of energy, with "Heavy Duty Judy" - yes, definitely the most kick-ass way to start a show this year (so there, now I've said it too). FZ lets out an adrenalin-drenched solo, and Chad goes mad in the background. The energy is maintained throughout "Packard Goose," before "Alien Orifice" calms things down a bit. The relatively intricate and dynamic solo vamp of this song keeps FZ from freaking out, but seldom fails to produce an interesting solo.

Early in the show, FZ declares confidence in the English comprehension of the audience. And so we get the near-complete Republican Medley, which is very well-recieved. The most noteworthy aspects of this medley are the first mentions of tonight's secret word, "airhose", and a long, beautiful-as-always "Any Kind Of Pain" solo.

But it's not until "Torture Never Stops" that things really start to happen. FZ suddenly recalls that they're playing at the "Falcum", and the song becomes interspersed with funny Smothersisms, as well as a lot of airhoses. It seems that FZ produces his most inspired "Torture" solos when the song itself has amused him. And so we get a really nice air sculpture this time, very inspired and dynamic. In the middle of things, we get some cool FZ/Thunes interaction, and for a while the vamp switches into 12/8. The solo is concluded with some nice licks and chords, and loud cheers from the Danes.

"Find Her Finer" provides some easy listening before it's time for "Big Swifty." And wow, this is a tasty little sucker - a long series of solos (all of which are allowed to stretch out quite a bit), mixed up with lots of instrumental chaos, organized by the guy with the baton. The trombone solo is great as always and Walt's is very impressive from a technical standpoint. Mike plays a rock-type solo, which sounds weird over the odd vamp, but very cool nonetheless. We also get an FZ solo, a sax solo and a little poll (whether the audience prefers "Aarhus" (a Danish town) or "Airhose"!) - everything accompanied by a variety of good vamps. Impressive - 17 minutes of improvisational heaven!

"Bamboozled By Love" almost contains more hoses than regular words, and gets weird when FZ starts playing the synclavier during the "I ain't the type for begging" part. Another great, high energy solo follows, before it's time for some of the usual towards-the-end songs, and we begin to feel that this is about as good as it gets. The second encore comes as a very pleasant surprise: The Green Genes/OSFA medley in its entirety! Nice versions (Ike sings "Florentine Pogen" in Thing Fish style!), good solos. For FP, Frank uses an unusually nasty guitar sound for an unusually nasty solo, while "Inca Roads" shows FZ at his other extreme.

A terrific show, with only the Republican Medley failing to keep my attention. I don't think I've heard any '88 show where Frank manages to maintain such high level of energy and creativity throughout his 9 (!!) solos. Only one monster, but an excellent one, and while the first set lacks a bit on the humorous side, the highly amusing second set compensates for this.

Yield schreef:
De meeste stemmen voor het meest verschrikkelijke nummer op dit voortreffelijke album. Van Led Zeppelin moet je gewoon afblijven.

Nobody knew, not even Frank Zappa, as he led his 11-strong band through a celebratory version of “America The Beautiful” to close out his show at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY on March 25, 1988, that it would be the last time he’d ever play in the United States.