I’ve not long returned from the first evening of a weekend of Frank Zappa programmes, at The Roundhouse in London. Unsurprisingly, I had a great time!! Tonight (Friday), the audience was treated to a serious blast of ‘classical’ Zappa – his ‘Yellow Shark’ pieces, amongst others, performed by The London Contemporary Orchestra, conducted by Hugh Brunt. I met Hugh near the bar afterwards, very briefly, and congratulated him on what I thought to be a very entertaining show. I asked him how much rehearsal time they’d had; “Three days”, he said straight-faced. Pretty fucking good, I thought, seeing as they were tackling stuff like “G-Spot Tornado” and “Outrage At Valdez”…..Prior to this encounter, I’d wandered out of the main auditorium into level 1, where they were having a “Zappa Mash-Up Disco”!! A Zappa-themed disco – I think Frank would have laughed himself to a standstill, had he known his music would one day be the prolonged subject of ‘the glitterball treatment’. We were hearing things like ‘Disco Boy’, ‘Dirty Love’ and ‘Be In My Video’ under disco circumstances, to paraphrase Frank. To top the evening off, I looked up from my pint at one point (trying to look suave) to suddenly see Gail Zappa approaching, flanked by a couple of ladies bearing laminated cards. Quick as a phone camera’s flash, I ambled over and asked Gail if I could have a photograph. Well, the result is here, everyone – she was charming and polite, responding to my thanks for enabling the event by saying ‘we couldn’t do it without you guys’. Thank you again, Gail. It was a pleasure to fleetingly meet you.
Shortly thereafter, I almost knocked over Ali N Askin, the original arranger of several Yellow Shark numbers, as I turned a little too sharply back toward the dancefloor – could it get any more bizarre?? He smiled, edging nervously away, so I thought maybe now’s a good enough time to leave, but as I prepared to bid the unorthodox revellers farewell, who else should wander past but Moon Zappa, carrying what appeared to be her daughter. She was soon deep in conversation with somebody else so I sheepishly left them all to their own, animated devices and shuffled out into the rainy, Camden night, exhilarated and yet slightly bamboozled by all that had gone before, buzzed with the anticipation of two more days of such other-worldly goings-on…..
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