Zapped!

The sock-in-progress has a crush on Dweezil Zappa. So, I must confess, do I. We had the good fortune to see his show in Vancouver on Tuesday night, and OMG! What a great time! I was still hopping when I woke up yesterday morning.

You see, Mr.Q writes for a monthly arts-n-music publication, The Nerve. It's volunteer, but he gets to review all kinds of fun stuff. And every once in awhile, he gets to do some pretty cool interviews...like one with Dweezil Zappa for the November issue. And sometimes, he gets to go see the shows as a "media guest." Like Tuesday. We got our tickets from the Will Call window, and made our way through the madding crowd into the theatre to look for our seats. Being freebies, we were resigned to noseblood seats. So you can imagine our surprise when we found ourselves looking at the stage from this angle:

I guess "front row centre" isn't eezackly considered nosebleed! Mr.Q was quite cute in his initial disbelief. Me, I was happy to accept our lot, and settled in to enjoy myself. I was really excited for him, though - he puts a lot of work and love into his journalism, and doesn't always get a lot of return for it. It's certainly not as visible as playing his bass, and he doesn't always get as much recognition or validation as he earns. But this - front row centre at a Zappa show - well, it was like he had finally "arrived." He even had a security guard come up and make sure he hadn't had any problems getting his pass. Meet my husband, the Rock Journalist. Hee hee!

We had a bit of a wait before the show, so I pulled out the sock and let it have a look around. I love that the security guards didn't even bat an eye at it!



And then the tunes started, and there was no knitting for some time. Now, I'm not terrifically familiar with Frank Zappa's music - and this was a great introduction! I couldn't tell you what songs they played, or how the new arrangements compared to the originals...but I can tell you that the musicianship was stellar, they played for 3 hours without a break, and I totally should have worn earplugs!



The best part for me was how much FUN they were having onstage. Not goofy, silly, detracting-from-the-music fun - but the whimsical, playful kind that comes when musicians love the music they play, really like playing it with each other, and are good enough to pull it off without screwing up. Here they are at the end of the show - still smiling:

And finally, the sock shows Dweezil some love:

I don't think I stopped grinning all evening. Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday night! Though I will admit that both the sock and I, enchanted as we were with Mr.Z - had a question for him: What was with those pants?!