I was interested in something I saw in one of the
links from this site--a photo from one John Petraitus taken of a
Zappa/Beefheart concert in Bloomington, Illinois, May, 1975. My
girlfriend and I were at the next show (or the one before?) in St.
Louis. It's been so long ago that I don't remember much about the
concert, but one thing will always stick out for me.
When the show finally began (after an interminable
set by the band Styx featuring their unconvincing evocation of Jimi
Hendrix with a psychedelic version of "America the Beautiful") the
house lights went down, and eerie green points of light like alien
fireflies popped out all over the darkened stage. The sound of someone
blowing a strange warbling melody on a soprano saxophone reverberated
in the auditorium, and a single dark figure could just be seen moving
slowly through a sort of backdrop made to look like tangled branches
or vines in the gloom; the effect was of some weird forest shaman
taking an evening stroll in the woods, meditatively blowing on his
horn while pondering some deep weighty matter.
Suddenly, a tribe of troglodytes and other assorted
malformed creatures appeared among the tangled undergrowth and began
lumbering zombie-like toward the shaman, making as if to attack.
They slowly drew in and surrounded the lone figure, who continued
to play his horn with utter confidence, and just when the lurching
attackers had tightened their knot around the shaman (revealed now
as none other than the Great Man himself in a panama hat and long
trailing scarves) he pointed his magic saxophone toward the nearest
ones and began blowing forth a stream of unearthly notes, mowing
them down. At the same instant, a green strobe light lit the scene
in flashing stop-start action like a bizzare semblance of early
movie photography, and one by one, the menacing troglodytes magically
fell and were swept away like leaves in a slow-motion windstorm.
The whole thing had probably taken less than two minutes
to produce, but the reaction to this wonderful scene was scary,
almost apocalyptic. The kids sitting next to us (who had obviously
come to see their heroes Styx and had no earthly idea what they
had stumbled into) jumped to their feet and emitted a loud "Whoa
! !", as did most of the audience, our own exclamations of surprise
mixed with pleasure joining in with the general roar of incredulity.
We, of course, knew what the Captain was capable of (or at least
we thought we did), but it's a little spooky when you've just witnessed
something with a large crowd of people (most of whom have some recreational
pharmaceutical percolating away in their system) and no one's sure
whether they should be transported with delight or frightened silly
out of their brainpans.
I remember thinking at the time, that, metaphorically,
the troglodytes were the members of Styx, and Beefheart, as the
"Obieman, revered throughtout the boneknob land" was clearing the
stage not only of them but all purveyors of bad music and those
who represented a psychic threat to him as well, before he went
on stage himself; but who knows? The rest of the show has faded
from my memory to vague remembrances of certain songs and images.
The Captain remained seated on a folding chair most of the time,
seeming to be content to blow a little harp while Frank led the
band through its paces. While it would have been nice to have showcased
the Captain a little more than he did, the music was far from mundane,
and Zappa's band was great as usual. The whole thing just pales
somehow in comparison to that opening.
I guess the Shaman in the Woods just shook everything
else loose - or blew it away.