Dweezil Zappa & His Band Made the Diabolically Difficult Delightful in Buffalo
Marathon set at Kleinhans Music Hall celebrated ‘Roxy & Elsewhere,’ ‘Apostrophe’ and more
The body of work is beyond immense, the complexity of the material is daunting, the virtuosity necessary to perform that material is considerable, and the potential for train-wrecks is ever-present. And yet, for nearly 3 hours at Kleinahans Music Hall on April 29, Dweezil Zappa and his band made performing the most diabolically difficult music to ever fall beneath the “rock” umbrella look not just easy, but also like a hell of a lot of fun.
For the 50 or so hardcore fans who’d indulged in the VIP experience, which included an invitation to the band’s afternoon soundcheck, a Q & A with the ever-affable Dweezil, and a photo op with his father Frank Zappa’s iconic Gibson Les Paul - as seen on the cover of the Shut Up ’n Play Yer Guitar album - the amount of work necessary to be able to make performing this music look like a walk in the park became viscerally obvious.
During soundcheck, some of the most difficult passages in “Echidna’s Arf (Of You)” and “St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast” were placed beneath the microscope and played repeatedly; “Punky’s Whips” was performed in its multi-section totality; the guitar solo section in Van Halen’s “Push Comes To Shove” also came under scrutiny; and the levels, general mix and “tuning of the room” were also examined and modified. The assembled were then invited into the stage to get up close and personal with the band and the equipment - a dream come true for “gear-heads” like yours truly.
The experience underscored the commitment necessary to making this celebration of Frank Zappa’s oeuvre (and his son’s band’s dedication to placing that body of work firmly in the present tense) a reality.
When Dweezil and his impeccable ensemble - Zach Tabori on vocals, guitar, percussion and drums, Bobby Victor on vocals and keyboards, Kurt Morgan on bass and vocals, Ryan Brown on drums and vocals and Scheila Gonzales on sax, flute, keyboards, and (hilariously) duck call - took the stage later that evening, the hours of work they’d put in translated as a playfulness that pervaded the set.
I’ve seen every tour Dweezil has mounted since he formed Zappa Plays Zappa in 2006, and all of them have been more than impressive. But this stop at Kleinhans Music Hall on the Rox(Postrophy) Tour 2025 reminded me more than any previous shows of the hilariously avant-garde, free-form performances by Frank Zappa’s early excursions with the Mothers of Invention.
Which is not to suggest that this was not a serious endeavor, buoyed by incredible musicianship, top-tier improvisations, and the tackling of harmonically and rhythmically dense compositions, a la the opening body-slam represented by “Filthy Habits/Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow/Nanook Rubs It/St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast.”
Particularly impressive throughout this suite of songs was the performance of multi-instrumentalist Tabori, who handled lead vocals, guitar harmonies, percussion and drum set, often running across the stage from his guitar/percussion setup to land at his stage-right drum kit in the nick of time to catch the downbeat in perfect synchrony with drummer Ryan Brown. Tabori seemed to be having the time of his life, often earning smiles of appreciation from Dweezil, while clearly entertaining his bandmates with his exuberant antics.
Similarly, Gonzales moved freely between instruments, covering the brass section, percussion parts on her keyboard, bringing soulful lead vocals to, among others, a timely and torrid “More Trouble Every Day,” and even winning (by audience vote) the band’s dance contest during “Approximate.” Leading the ensemble through a version of Lionel Richie’s “Hello” with a duck call interpretation of the vocal melody was a particularly Mothers of Invention-style touch. It’s not difficult to understand why Scheila has been a constant in Dweezil’s band from the very beginning.
The core of the Rox(Postrophy) Tour setlist is, as the name would suggest, culled from Frank Zappa’s evergreen 1974 albums Roxy & Elsewhere and Apostrophe. The majority of both albums - arguably two of the late Zappa’s finest, although with 62 albums released during his lifetime and some 70 dropped posthumously, there’s an awful lot of music to choose from - filled the Kleinhans set.
But there were plenty of surprises as well. One of which came in the form of a spot-on take on Van Halen’s ‘Push Comes To Shove,’ a reggae-ish, soul-rock hybrid, deep-cut from the Fair Warning album, which Dweezil told us during soundcheck was his favorite VH effort. Sporting a freshly-designed one-of-a-kind guitar based on Edward Van Halen’s “Star Guitar,’ used during Van Halen’s 1980 tour, Dweezil nailed the song’s funky rhythmic figures and absolutely crushed the Allan Holdsworth-inspired guitar solo - the very one he’d practiced several times during soundcheck.
Kudos to keyboardist/vocalist Bobby Victor, who stepped out front to tackle the David Lee Roth role with panache. (And a killer Edward Van Halen-style scissor kick, to boot.)
There was also the non-Roxy/Apostrophe masterpiece ‘Punky’s Whips,’ a hilarious send-up of former Frank Zappa drummer Terry Bozzio’s apparent fascination with the androgynous Punky Meadows, guitarist with 70s glam-rock collective Angel, with Tabori filling the Bozzio role; a tasty take on a “Harry, You’re A Beast/The Orange County Lumber Truck” mashup; and a frankly mind-blowing romp through the ‘outer space jazz’ masterpiece ‘Inca Roads,’ which featured a lengthy, face-melter of a guitar solo from Dweezil.
It’s a bit absurd to suggest that Frank Zappa was smiling down on his son from a heaven he clearly didn’t believe in the existence of during the Kleinhans show, but… well, it’s a nice thing to imagine it, isn’t it?
After all, no one has done more to preserve, expand and further the legacy of this incredibly important music than Dweezil. And we should all be grateful for that.
