October 28, 2008 · No Comments

Monday night I went to see my third “Zappa Plays Zappa” concert…

2006: Warner Theater, Washington, D.C.
2007: Ram’s Head Live!, Baltimore, Md.
2008: The Birchmere, Alexandria, Va.

This was part of of their “You Can’t Fit On Stage Anymore” tour – designed for the more devoted fans, it had a few things that you wouldn’t expect from a normal concert:

• A few days before the concert, an email was sent to the attendees with 70 songs to pick from. Each person could vote for up to five songs, and the top picks were included in the setlist for the evening. (The website says folks can vote for up to ten songs, but the email I received specified five.)
• The concerts are being held in smaller venues that hold just a few hundred people at most, for a more intimate setting with the band. Smaller stages, too, hence the name of the tour.
• Admission includes being able to download a recording of that night’s performance in MP3 format about a week after the concert, at no extra cost.
• The performances also include a guitar giveaway, and the winner is able to go up on stage to claim their prize, plug in their new guitar and jam with the band.

Or, in a more entertaining version of my four bullet-point recap:

I only wished that I was able to get there earlier: I went to the concert straight from work and drove through the District in order to get to the venue, and arrived only 10 minutes before the show was supposed to start. Since the Birchmere is set up like a dinner theatre, I ended up in an open seat at a table to the right of the stage. Not the best vantage point – I saw about as much of the sound man as I could of the band itself – but being close to the stage door meant that I was the first one who noticed the band coming out and was the first one who started the applause as they came towards the stage, so that’s got to be worth something, right? Anyway, I didn’t care too much since I’ll be able to hear the whole performance when I can download the MP3 files soon. Hopefully they’re good quality! It’d be nicer if they were lossless, but I’ll take what I can get. Here was the whole setlist for the night (from the ZPZ review forum):

• Inca Roads
• Tell Me You Love Me
• Dog Breath
• Joe’s Garage
• Packard Goose
• Peaches en Regalia
• Billy The Mountain
• Pound for a Brown on the Bus
• [ Guitar giveaway ]
• Blues Jam
• Dirty Love
• Echidna’s Arf (Of You)
• G-Spot Tornado
• Oh No
• Son of Orange County
• More Trouble Everyday
• Token of My Extreme

Encore:

• Camarillo Brillo
• Muffin Man
• Zomby Woof
• Willie The Pimp

Hopefully they’ll return to Baltimore again soon. The band does such a good job of entertaining (I like concerts to be experiences, not just musical performances), I can’t not go when they come by my area.