Living on the edge
By David Lewis
Frank Zappa
Wembley
ZAPPA HAS taken a lot of flak lately. He's too old hat and boring, they say. His 'jokes' are getting repetitive and thin and, lawdehelpus, he's still doing long and winding guitar solos. But one sin nobody can ever accuse Zappa of committing is sitting back on past glories. This was the fourth time I've seen him on stage, yet I sat through the set barely recognising a song and left totally entranced.
There was perhaps a certain air of take-the-money-and-run about latest flying visit. Just two nights at a mega-venue for what he described as the "Wembley still-life concert," almost no communication and not even cursory introductions to the songs, each one seguing straight into the next.
Wearing ludicrously tight purple satin strides, Zappa frequently left his excellent band to get on with it while he perched on a stool, his legs demurely crossed and puffing elegantly on a cigarette while he meticulously tuned his guitar before stepping back up for a series of awesomely majestic solos.
There must be some very strange creatures indeed crawling round inside this man's head, for a Zappa solo is like no-one else's in its weird qualities – they're savage and raucous, often using heavy distortion and strange effects, but they also have an oddly attractive power and melancholy.
But perhaps the night's peak was reached not through Zappa's guitar virtuosity, but his dexterity with the conductor's baton, a prop he used intermittently and never more effectively than on 'Easy Meat', when he manipulated the band through a maze of classical style arrangements before driving them on to a thunderously grandoise, synthesiser-powered climax.
As usual, Zappa has gathered an immaculate coterie of sidemen around him and rehearsed them to the point where they can run through the gamut of musical chameleon's repertoire without a break and never putting a foot wrong. Guitarists Ray White and Arthur Barrow (who wore a hat that resembled an enormous Spanish omlette flopped over his head) shared vocals and honours on everything from heavy rock to spook doowop, cabaret balladeering and mock psychedelia, and it should be said that either of them could easily make it fronting their own bands with the remarkable voices they've been blessed with.
Cutting out his usual sarcastic chat with the audience, Zappa kept his humour strictly musical, the second half of the show largely taken up with a string of semi-comic numbers like 'I'm A Beautiful Guy' (I think). 'Charley's Enormous Mouth' (a trite but savage anti-drug song), his recent sinqle 'Joe's Garaqe' and culminating in a burning rendition of 'Why Does It Hurt When I Pee', with Zappa's name being flashed in enormous letters on a screen backdrop and remaining there during the roars for an encore while an assistant dutifully tuned the maestro's guitar. Now that has a certain egomaniacal style.
A Zappa concert is always a very edge affair for me. Is he really only in it for the money? Who do I admire him so much when he's so obviously scornfully lampooning the very people who're waving and worshipping at the foot ot his stage? He's an arrogant, egocentric, evil witted bastard to be sure and yet that's the very reason why I'll be there the next time he deigns to cast his pearls before us fawning swine.
Note. Zappa had concerts at the Wembley Arena, London on June 17 and 18. The band was FZ, Ike Willis, Ray White, Arthur Barrow, David Logeman, Tommy Mars. (FZShows)