Father and son walk on the wild side for Frank Zappa 70th Birthday Celebration

Dweezil has inherited his father’s formidable talent on electric guitar and appears to be devoted to burnishing cherished memories of an adored parent by lovingly recreating his music note by note. And that’s a lot of notes.

As an idiosyncratic character of strong opinions, Frank Zappa attracted a very particular fanbase. Here they were, mostly men of a certain age and, to put it baldly, mostly lacking the greater number of their follicles. The support group is the Mighty Boosh, the male comedy duo who are also great Zappaphiles. They wear girly dresses but still make a brave stab at macho strut Willie The Pimp, a Zappa classic from Hot Rats.

Dweezil takes the stage and starts off with the same number, although I could be wrong about this as there are no tell-tale vocals and a completely different arrangement. His band — too many to name here, but including a corking female sax player — are a class act. What follows is the entirety of the Apostrophe LP from 1974, starting with Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow, which is a warning from Frank about the dire consequences of eating frozen matter which has been urinated upon by huskies. Thanks for that, Frank, it’s a timely reminder to us all.

Other highlights include a new arrangement of Stinkfoot — I’m not going into this in any detail — and Excentrifugal Forz. At various moments, the big screen at the back of the stage delivers us Frank in his live prime, and Dweezil obligingly lets the old man do the hard lead parts while he provides rhythm guitar. This is all great fun, but the old conundrum about (both) Zappas remains: is this a triumph of fretboard over feeling?

Frank Zappa 70th Birthday Celebration
Roundhouse
Chalk Farm Road, Camden Town, NW1 8EH