Originally posted by Badchild
Pt. 2- Six for the show
We arrived in Montreal at noon and after a club sandwich and a beer or three, we all went to sleep. Came to a couple of hours later and went into
Zappa mode for good. Although it was cold as fuck in Montreal we were all overheated with exitement. Did a good bar crawl in downtown until about a
half hour before the show. There were thousands of people lingering around the Forum with lots of hats and banners and such.
Went in, found our seats (forth row center!) and the party started. The
band came out, tuned up and then there he was, Frank Zappa. He said how thrilled he was to be back in Montreal and then launched the band into
Chunga’s Revenge.
The forum was pretty packed probly about 9 or 10 k people. But the fucking sound was awesome. I remember looking up at the PA speakers which were huge
and counting them...there were 24 cabinets about 1m by 3m each.
Steve Vai was stunt guitarist and i was listening to his playing and it was quite loud, as was the whole band, and getting louder as they made ready
for the solo. Then Frank made a head gesture to the side of the stage and J. Smothers (a scary looking guy to say the least) came over with a
stratocaster and gave it to FZ. The hair on the back of my neck was starting to stand straight out in anticipation for this solo from one of my
favorite tunes, but what happened next just about made me die.
When FZ hit the first note of the solo, it was so fucking loud and in your face, i’m sure that if you had been on stage just then and could see the
audience, you’d have seen 10 000 heads jerk back in unison. I mean, we are talking Major Decibels coming at you from everywhere. I glanced over to one
of my friends, who had never been to a fz concert before. He had his jaw hanging down below his navel and his eyes bugged out. It was just Pure Bliss.
The rest of the show is mostly a blur, but i do remember him playing a lot of stuff from the You are What You Is album with special treatment of Dumb
all over. And also The Black Page..And also being totally amazed (ie: in awe) of what Steve Vai could do with a stratocaster....
But i will never ever forget the force of that guitar solo, to this day 27 years later, i still get goosebumps when i hear that tune.
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