August 22nd, 1984 early
The Vogue Theater is the smallest venue FZ has played since 1962, he tells us at the
beginning. And you can tell that from the recording, which really has the feeling of a
club gig. The boys in the band seem to enjoy these conditions, and we get one of those
happy 1984 shows. The special atmosphere is the best thing about the tape though,
otherwise it's pretty much your average Aug 1984 show. The highs and lows come exactly
where you expect them.
In other words, OK - good solos in Green Hotel, Dumb All Over (really good!), Outside
Now, Sharleena (a little disappointing) and Easy Meat, while Zoot Allures, Trouble/Penguin
and Enema Bandit range between so-so and mediocre. The most noteworhty solo comes in Easy
Meat, which starts out promising, has some cool loops and good playing by Chad &
Scott. But FZ loses inspiration and ends the solo surprisingly soon.
But while the music is not too much to write home about, I still enjoy listening to
this show. Maybe because it was one of my first '84 shows, but also because of the good
humour and nice "club feel". I seem to recall that the late show was better
musically - over to our man in Arizona...
--JN
August 22nd, 1984 late
FZ greets the second shifters in the tiny Vogue with a terrific Heavy Duty Judy opener.
The tape quality is a bit different from the first show, either the taper moved to a
different part of the club or it's a different taper. But still a decent tape.
Highlites of this club show are the City Of Tiny Lites solo, Mudd Club lyric mutation
that includes insertion of "the Vogue" instead of "Studio 54" and
Craig Pinkus instead of Al Malkin was looking for a virgin with nice breath. Craig was in
attendance - he once toured around with the Mothers in 74 keeping a road diary and
chronicaling in in the Mothers Home Journal. Listen to 12/31/74 - he's the secret word.
Truck Driver Divorce contains a mini-monster with FZ soloing extensively using loops,
Bobby, Alan and Ray all taking nice solos followed again by Frank - my tape cuts near what
has to be the end. Secret words include alot of Prince references and Scott gets a razzing
during Keep It Greasey (Scott gets greasey). Kreega offers up more nice soloing - Alan and
his big volcano and Frank with more loop induced madness.
Both of these Vogue shows have a special club quality and I suggest getting them both.
Possibly the smallest venue Frank played in since the 60's.
--BL
August 23rd, 1984
This show is in dire need of a good Secret Word or two. Thanks to two long series of
"no-guitar-solo" songs, this concert is prevented from exhibiting any prolonged
excitement. Frank's guitar solos are quite interesting, running the gambit from straight
ahead "rock" to "what the hell is going on?" experimentation.
Unfortunately, Frank does not solo that often in this show, and thus the show suffers from
long droughts of routinely performed songs of which we are all sick.
"City of Tiny Lites" starts the tape off well (the "Zoot Allures"
is caught towards the end, and in less than bearable sound), containing a classic
"choke-strangle-abuse" your guitar type solo. The energy is strong at this
point, but not strong enough to survive the YAWYI medley which follows. By the time Frank
whips out his next good solo in "Hot Plate Heaven" almost 40 minutes later, I
have almost given up on this show. But the "Heaven" solo is good- long,
energetic, with touches of swing and Santana's secret chord progressions. "The
Deathless Horsie" arrives next, and boy is this a welcome sound. Contrasting the
good-feeling solo that preceded it, Frank takes this effort to darker and more
introspective places, creating a nice conflict with the happy sounding keyboard arpeggio.
At this point, the show hits another long dry spot with a "He's Brown Greasy Like
Me?" medley, which not even the usually enjoyable "Carol" and
"Chana" can redeem. "Let's Move to Cleveland" finally brings intensity
back to the show with a rhythmically scattered Frank solo. Thunes starts things off with a
"My Sharona" based riff, which he shortly abandons for a spacey, harmonics-based
feel, which he shortly abandons for a bouncy "Sharleena"-esque groove, which he
shortly abandons for a….well, you get the picture. Frank, meanwhile, simply solos
away, apparently oblivious to whatever Scott and Chad are doing. While the end result
sounds like 5-plus minutes of the rhythm section trying to find the guitarist (and
failing), there are several instances in which the two entities converge and briefly form
a whole greater than their parts. Unfortunately, they then veer off and lose the brief
magic they created. Not a great solo, but this "Cleveland" effort is definitely
an interesting listen.
On the whole, I would say that this is an average '84 show, but falling on the weaker
side of average. Apart from a couple good Frank solos (including the always enjoyable
"Crew Slut", which is the penultimate encore of the night), this concert has
nothing going for it. As a said above, a couple juicy Secret Words could have redeemed the
more vocal oriented parts, but sadly, no.
--JG
August 25th, 1984
This is the first of two nights which yielded the Does Humor Belong In Music? video.
Evidently, most of the material from this stand to be released on either video or audio
came from the second night, which may or may not have much to do with the fact that this
is not one of the tour's most exciting shows.
The night gets off to a good start with Zoot Allures, featuring some bizarre jazzy
Zavod and Thunes support behind FZ's solo. It's also nice to have City Of Tiny Lites as
the second number, but most of FZ's solos from here on out are solid but unsurprising, as
is the bulk of the show in general. There is almost no secret word action, probably
because FZ wanted straight versions of the material for the video, and little else other
than the usual '84 fare.
The one startling exception comes halfway through the show, when FZ directs the band to
"fart around" while the camera operators change tapes. The result is some cool,
monstrous improv, with Bobby doing a good impression of the '88 saxophonists and Zavod
sounding like Tommy Mars in an '82 King Kong solo, while the rhythm section skids from
free jazz to reggae and back. Too bad this didn't happen more often - we could have had a
Yuppies from '84. Two other highlights appear in close proximity to this jam, as Dumb All
Over and Honey Don't You Want A Man Like Me are two numbers that rocked harder this year
than any other, in this reviewer's opinion. The latter is also the video/CD version in
which Twisted Sister replaces Helen Reddy. (It's preceded by an amusing moment in which
Zavod mistakenly goes into Bobby Brown - I imagine several of us would want to be at a
show where FZ refuses to perform this song.)
Aside from this, the other moment that catches this writer's attention is FZ's
Cleveland solo, a frantic ride. Much of it is slated to appear on Trance Fusion, but FZ
shaved off some good stuff at the beginning, including an Isn't It Romantic? quote.
Otherwise, not much to write home about at this show. Also, the noisy, unfocused AUD
recording I have makes it even harder to enjoy this music - are there other masters out
there?
--PB
August 26th, 1984
The second night in front of the videocameras lacks a bit of
the wildness of the first, but it is a stronger example of what the tour has to offer
nonetheless. Again, it's a quite straightforward outing, although "mine the
harbor" appears as a secret word, but the show achieves a high level of quality
mostly on the strength of FZ's solos.
Zoot Allures once again finds Zavod nudging FZ into jazzy altered-scale territory,
something this reviewer enjoys although one suspects that FZ himself had mixed feelings
about it. The remaining solos are uniformly strong, displaying the energetic
four-way interplay between FZ, Zavod, Thunes and Wackerman that could emerge when they
were in the right mood. Two of the better examples from this night, Black Page #2
and Deathless Horsie, will be familiar to YCDTOSA listeners.
The main set, despite an effort to avoid repeats from the previous night, offers a
standard list, aside from FZ's impromptu Dangerous Kitchen, and concludes with a Cleveland
where FZ offers some startling screams to conclude his typically-for-this-leg-of-the-tour
frantic solo. The encores begin with Crew Slut, featuring audience participation, and
Thunes botches the intro to Cosmik Debris but compensates by getting highly involved with
FZ's solo. A five-song second encore of crowd pleasers finishes out the night.
--PB
August 27th, 1984
Another exceptionally fine audience recording - August 1984 is one of the best months
ever in terms of high quality FZ tapes. Now, if only the same could be said about the
music. This is not one of the worst shows, but there's a risk that some of my frustration
from listening to too many of these stereotype shows will be ventilated here.
We kick off with Heavy Duty Judy, probably the best show opener of the tour. While the
more out-there Zoot Allures spawned some really fine solos, it caused some dreadful ones
too. The HDJ solos all sound similar - harmless, but pretty swinging and nice. City Of
Tiny Lights sees FZ struggle to make something interesting out of his solo, and after two
minutes of noodlings he comes up with some memorable bursts near the end. One reason I
dislike this song on the '84 tapes is that it forebodes the YAWYI suite, while it normally
would forebode Pound For A Brown.
I was close to pressing the fast forward button here, but I'm glad I didn't. We do get
a healthy dose of that famous '84 humour. In Mudd Club, FZ comes up with a new secret word
theme: Ronald McDonald. "Did you know that Ronald McDonald is down there right now
looking for a McNugget with nice breath?" really cracked me up.
The only surprise of the set is The Deathless Horsie. One of my favourite vamps from
the 78/79 touns, but I can't help sighing at the reggae beat and all those cheesy sounds
that permeate this version. Not a bad solo, but a mere shadow of its old self. It's
followed by two other badly butchered songs: Montana (I prefer not to talk about it) and
Easy Meat. It took FZ's bands 4 years and 5 tours of hard work to turn the mediocre EM we
heard in 1978 into the heavy rocker we have on YCDTOSA #5, just to see it ruined again by
this band. But OK, beyond the vocal- drenched verses and the phony ska chorus, they do a
nice version of the classical section, and it's still a reliable solo vehicle. Quite good
solo here. Scott and Chad have some really cool collaboration in the background, while
Alan seems to be in his own world.
FZ gives a funny little wink to some of his ex-alumni in Honey Don't You Want:
"her favourite group was Missing Persons". The humour continues throughout the
usually pretty bland Gay -> Chana suite - I don't get the jokes, but it's always great
to hear FZ crack Ike & Ray up. Alan starts his Cleveland solo with some weird but
quite cool chords, continues with some more daring playing, before it's time for the usual
stuff. Oddly enough, Chad gets to play a short solo before Zavod can conclude his volcano.
FZ's solo turns out to be the highlight of the show, one of those solos where it feels as
if he's made a sketch of it in his head before, and fills it out with notes as he plays.
He begins with the Treacherous/Inca theme, and returns to it twice during the solo, which
gives a thematic feeling to it. In between he delivers his most inspired lines of the
evening.
Dinah-Moe Humm has a funny polka-feel to it, otherwise the encores are boring. The
Syracuse Enema Bandit closes the set, with FZ at his noodling worst. Overall, it's FZ's
guitar playing that's the biggest let-down of the night. With 3-4 more good solos, this
would have been an above-average show, but no - 5 out of 10 at best.
--JN
The first hour of this show is enjoyable. Not great, mind you, but entertaining enough
to keep my attention. Frank's guitar solo vehicles dominate this portion of the show, with
7 solos arriving in the first 9 songs. The first couple solos are typical, by-the-numbers
affairs, and seem to bode poorly for the rest of the show. But by the time "Hot Plate
Heaven" rolls around, Frank starts to experiment a little more and begins creating
some more interesting sounds. His "Black Page" solo is particularly exciting,
with Frank working the high-end of the fret board at length, and getting good mileage out
of his whammy bar. The show hits a dry spot with the mini-YAWYI medley, before peaking
with the always enjoyable "Ride My Face to Chicago" and the surprise
post-Chicago jam. As soon as the song ends, Frank continues with some heavy chords and
Scott follows his lead with a bass-line that resembles the first track off Santana's
"Abraxas" album, titled "Singing Winds, Crying Beasts". This leads to
a short Frank solo, a short Zavod solo, a short Wackerman solo, and then a short closing
blues jam lead by Frank. The rarity of this event (especially considering the tour) makes
this impromptu jam more enjoyable than it is actually is, but nevertheless, it is probably
the highlight of the show.
After this, the show is all downhill. Only one more guitar solo ("Cosmik
Debris" anyone?), and no Secret Words, and thus we have nothing but overplayed songs
and tired encores. On the whole, this show delivers an okay first hour, and nothing else.
And so the 1st leg of the 1984 US tour winds to a close, in Saratoga, with one of the
best soundboard recordings of any year. Easily A+/A sound. It's also one of the more
widespread bootlegs I've come across, called Kreega Bondola and available, as far as I've
seen, in every second-hand record store in the country.
Frank is finally starting to mix up the setlists a bit, even going so far as to split
up the Honey, Don't You Want a Gay Greasy Bobby? medley. And the band seems in a good, if
workmanlike mood.
It's a shame, then, that this concert did so little for me. I racked my brain trying to
come up with highlights or really awful stuff to talk about, and didn't find anything.
It's well-played, Frank's solos are energetic - it's just bland. I'm the Slime had a very
good solo. What's New in Baltimore? was missing the instrumental opening. Bobby comes in
late on the intro to Keep It Greasey. Frank gives an intro to Camarillo Brillo that is
incredibly sexist. The secret word only comes into play in the last song, far too late to
really have an impact.
I'm grasping at straws here. It's not a BAD show. The band is good, the setlist is
varied, the playing is high-energy. But...I dunno, I wanted more. Oh well, Europe is next,
and the shows would definitely start to get better.
