Deja Whaaa? Zappa Plays Zappa

You've heard of deja vu. Last night at Berkeley Community Theater the Plotniks experienced Deja Whaaa?, where you're not only sure you're feeling something you've felt before in a place with which you're quite familiar, but the second you enter the concert hall you realize it is filled to the rafters with people who all look like the people you went to college with, everyone of whom knows and applauds every single guitar lick in every single song, applauds, in fact, before the band even starts playing, and sings along to every word and grunt, except you, Poor Plottie, don't know Jack Doodly about the music, are not familiar with any of the songs, are not even sure what language they're playing in and are pretty sure you've fallen down into a rabbit hole lined with paisley shirts, tattoos and pot fumes.

Jeez Louise, Berkeley, Plottie's Alma Mater: Half an hour after the show starts, gray-headed, pony-tailed people with big asses are still weaving their way in, standing in the aisles blocking everyone's view, wondering where their seats are in the dark, laughing loudly, burping and saying "Shit. 'Cuse Me. (Burp)."

The saving grace -- and man, is it ever a saving grace -- is that Zappa Plays Zappa is one of the very best rock and roll bands Plotnik has ever heard. Even Ducknik, who is not usually someone who takes kindly to loud, crashing boy-hormone music, was on the edge of her seat (it is she who noticed there weren't very many women in the audience).



Plotnik's friend Jamie plays guitar in the band. Jamie set two seats aside for the Plotniks, along with two VP20 cards. Plot never did find out what those cards were for. No one in the box office knew. On stage, Jamie and Dweezil stay calm, while everyone else jumps around like a raccoon is chewing on his/her face.

Zappa Plays Zappa is fronted by Dweezil Zappa, the late Frank Zappa's son. They play Frank Zappa music, which is incredibly convoluted and difficult to play, but also rocks its rear end off start to finish. Occasionally you might hear something resembling a chorus you could sing to, like "The Raccoon is Chewing On My Face," but it doesn't happen much.

Actually, when it did, everyone sang right along: "A Raccoon is Chewing on My Face. A Raccoon is Chewing on My Face." It seemed perfectly natural.



Plotnik had always assumed that Dweezil was another SonofaLegend, like Julian Lennon, or Dino Martin, who could, you know, play a little and approximate Dad with a macabre kind of boyish adulation that would appeal to young girls, but Plotnik was dead wrong. After one song halfway through the show, with the audience having just exploded onto its feet, albeit wobbly, to scream like mad for what Dweezil had just done with his guitar, Plottie texted PD and Nefnik that "Dweezil Zappa just played the greatest guitar solo I've ever heard. This band is astonishing."

Nefnik, who is a drummer and knows Jamie best, texted back: "Told Ya."

The Great Plotnik was not a big Frank Zappa fan -- he vaguely remembers Suzy Creemcheeze -- but he really loved this band, above all Dweezil and the drummer Joe Travers and a 9-year-old keyboardist they've got hidden in the back behind the bassist like an illegal alien. He plays a few synthesizers that are probably forty years older than he is.

Imagine if the music had been familiar. Plot and Duck would probably not have left at 10:30, drained after two and a half hours with no end in sight. Eventually, the raccoons would have left them noseless, but happy.

Sadly, Zappa Plays Zappa was only in town for one night -- the band is on a world tour and that may not be a big enough venue for them. Thanks for the tickets, Jamie from UF and AL. You're onto something big here.