I was kinda waiting for Nihil-Morari's "blessing" before posting my story, since it's his thread, but at this point I guess I can claim "popular demand".
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1980, my first year in college, and I'd been a Zappa/Mothers fan for a few years, having discovered them earlier but really only starting my journey with Sheik Yerbouti. By this point, my buddy Chris and I had maybe a dozen albums between us. In addition to Sheik Yerbouti, I know I had the Joe's Garage trilogy, One Size Fits All (had to get that one because it was my actual intro to The Mothers), and the Flo and Eddie classics Fillmore East - June 1971 and Just Another Band from L.A. I know Chris had Roxy & Elsewhere, and I'm sure we each had a few others.
Scored tickets to see Frank at The Masonic Theater in Royal Oak, Michigan. Chris was my best bud at the time (and co-star in other concert stories here on DTF), so we prepared for it the way we usually did, which was by listening to as much of the catalog as we could.
As we all know now, Frank's concerts were not "greatest hits" concerts by any means, and sometimes even consisted of all-new material. At the time, we didn't understand that, and I was hoping to sing along with at least a couple of familiar songs. I think the only ones I recognized were "Easy Meat" and "I Don't Wanna Get Drafted", which was both reasonably familiar but not really favorites. Oh well. Of course the band was tight; everyone who plays with Frank has to be in the top 0.1% of all living musicians. But so much of Frank's music takes a while to work on you, and there's often a lot that you don't catch until repeated listens. When you're sitting there digging it for the first time, you can't help but be impressed by the musicianship, but what the hell are they playing? Can we get some "Nanook" or maybe "I'm the Slime"? "Dancing Fool"? Um, no.
The Masonic Theater is an absolutely stunning venue. Totally old-school style, red velvet and other fancy stuff on the walls, big chandeliers, just gorgeous. This was the famous tour when they collected panties. As the show progressed, you'd see panties getting tossed onto the stage. Fun. Not exactly hygienic, but what the fuck.
During a jam, some asshole threw a whiskey bottle onto the stage. With a wave of his hand, the band stopped cold and Frank called for the house lights, which revealed said asshole being grabbed and pounded on by security, and perhaps a few others as well. They dragged his ass out of there.
Frank took the opportunity to chastise the audience. He talked about how this is such a beautiful concert hall, but people can't just appreciate that; they have to get all stoned or drunk or whatever, and then act like assholes. He'd asked for panties, and someone threw a whiskey bottle. Oh man, he was pissed, and rightfully so. Eventually he calmed down, the asshole was gone, and he said "Now, as soon as my drummer gets back out here, we can continue" and Vinnie comes running out from back stage. He's barely sat down when Frank goes "Three! Four!" and bang! they pick up the song, seemingly from right where they left off. Seriously, it was like he'd pressed the Pause button, then later released it. Frank's command and control over his ensembles is legendary, and we got to witness it first-hand, although under less-than-positive circumstances.
Another thing that was kinda weird was the solos. With most bands, the solos grow organically out of the songs. Usually you play the solo over the same chords as the verse or chorus. Sometimes, especially in prog, it's a different section completely, but still fits into the composition. The solos that night weren't really like that. The band would be jamming in 11/8 or some other crazy time signature, then the lights would change, the music would change, a spotlight would hit Frank, and he'd take his solo. Basically "The maestro will now take a solo!" I remember at least one time it was just a generic blues thing -- don't get me wrong, it was a great solo -- but it had nothing to do with the song it was in. Then after, everything would change back and the song would continue. This happened more than once. Just really odd, how the solos didn't seem to have anything to do with the song. If the song is in 11/8, solo in 11/8, don't give me some generic blues thing. Any idiot can do that.
As the last chord of the last song was still bouncing around the room, the house lights came up, and the message was clear: "No encores for you!" This audience did not get/deserve an encore. The asshole who threw the whiskey bottle had ruined that for all of us. A lot of people keep applauding and screaming, because that's what you do, but after a while it was obvious that it was in vain. I wouldn't be surprised if Frank was halfway back to the motel by then.
So I got to see Frank, my absolute hero at the time, but it was not the amazing experience I'd hoped it would be. It was certainly unique, and I don't know what I expected, but this was not it. It's impossible not to be impressed by the incredible musicianship. But I didn't know most of the songs and had trouble digging them, plus the weird way the solos came about, and the whole thing with the whiskey bottle resulting in no encore, left me with a less-than-positive feeling about the whole thing. That's what I meant when I said I was somewhat disappointed. This was "later era Frank" when he just didn't give a fuck (if he ever did) and was just playing concerts to raise money to fund his classical projects to come.