Dweezil Zappa @ De Oosterpoort – Groningen – 21.11.2012
To be the sun or daughter of a famous or even legendary musician is not always the easiest. You can see this if you consider Lisa-Marie Presley, or recently Stephanie Rose Bongiovi amongst many other unfortunate children. Definitely on the positive side of life as eldest of Mister Frank “Sheik Yerbouti” Zappa is Dweezil. The cosmic-debris-freaks were going on a pilgrimage to listen to some finest, sweet and crooked live-tunes at De Oosterpoort. Did you know that his birth-name was Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa, but he was always called Dweezil. So by his age of 5 he nurgled mom and dad to change his name officially into “d-)„weasel”. He also was very shortly a MTV-vj, tried to step in his feet in the movie-business. He had his own television-show – Dweezil & Lisa – in the Food Network. But he continued his musical career as a guitarist, mainly playing in the last years Zappa Plays Zappa. This was definitely the best decision he could do if you watched him alive.
His excellent wolves played the intro to ‘Treacherous Cretins’ when the leader of the pack Dweezil Zappa stepped on stage into the spotlight. By his first solo on a white Fender Stratocaster it was a sign of evidence that he is a chip off the old block. Scott Thunes on bass was the varied, groovy director of the rock-orchestra. ‘Penguin In Bondage Bond’ was to worm out the first cries of shuddering ravishment. There was no original singer or member of any Zappa Band in the line-up 2012, but what Ben Thomas as leading howler was performing was utmost conclusive. By ‘Pygmy Twylyte’ the lady of the darkest hour Scheila Gonzales was hyper thrilling by her saxophone solo. Devilish heat from the realm of hades as emperor of the underworld. She expressed her second face by getting in a very childish mood too by playing toy-pipes and whistles. The third was her seductive one, when she was dancing with Ben and trying to seduce him. When it got too hot for him he was peeking her and she even was amused. ‘Baby Snakes’ was the soliciting time on nearby female highness of lead-vocals and keybord-solo of Chris Norton. Jr. No “Titties & Beer” when Pete Jones was on stunt-vocals vy ‘Debra Kadabra’. He was the Who-Dat-Guy as he was wearing a fur-cap with the famous fan-slang-logo of the New Orleans Saints. This was the stunning and extraordinary highlight also by the extended solo of DZ on his Gibson SG Signature Model. By the pure eye you did not discover any visible difference to the original by his creator. The regular set ended by the disharmonies of ‘Packard Goose’. That’s what the folks loved Frank Zappa for, being politicially correct and incorrect and combining the humorous, kind of military-thrill-words and marching-rhythms with popular American Music. So by the clamour of applause it was encore-time and ‘Zomby Woof’ was the spook of it. ‘Strictly Genteel – Sioned Eleri’ was the relaxing end anthem after 135 minutes of music and these were worth every cent of the entrance-fee.
And last not least DZ is not a guy you have to be afraid of like you could have been of his daddy always being escorted by his security-gorilla. No he is the sunnyboy, very well aware that his fans are taking care of his incomes for living. And Dweezil Zappa loved to be in contact with them, so he was fulfilling all autograph-and photo-requests. Naturally he was smart enough to know that this increases his sales and profit of tour-merchandise… Uuuuh-Yeah!
