HALLOWEEN (DVD-AUDIO)

Halloween is a very satisfying performance from the 1978 Zappa band. It has its goods and its bads.

First, I was a bit shocked by the absence of drummer Terry Bozzio, my favourite Zappa drummer along with Wackerman. But I quickly realised that Vinnie Colaiuta, the substitute drummer, does a fantastic job! The set list (or the songs selected by Dweezil) could have been a bit more original. Plus, the version of "Dancin' Fool" featured on Halloween is pretty sloppy; we can see that they worked on it again before recording Sheik Yerbouti. On the other hand, the extended "Black Napkins" with L.Shankar as guest is fabulous! The sound quality is outstanding, almost impossible for the time when it was recorded! No wonder why it was released as a DVD-Audio.

I'd give 4 out of 5 to Zappa's Halloween show, an excellent purchase and I hope more of those unreleased shows will find their ways into the stores!

This Halloween performance was released posthumously in 2003 from a series of shows done at The Palladium in New York City from October 27-31, 1978. The performances on this album were taken from various tapes in Zappa's files and were selected for the album by Dweezil and Joe Travers. They picked out what they figured would reflect an actual show, though it's only a total of 70 minutes, thus much shorter than a typical show. The line up of tracks are mostly things that you have heard from so many other live Zappa albums out there, but the sound and the crowds seem to be having a great time.

After a lead-in track featuring the sounds of the NYC Audience, the album begins with "Ancient Armaments". At the time of this release, this was a track that was rarely heard. However, this particular version is the complete version which had previously been heard on the very rare single "I Don't Want to Get Drafted" as the b-side. That version was cut up quite a bit to cut out the chatter with the crowd, so this one retains all of the fun of a Zappa show as he converses with the audience. This is followed by a so-so performance of Dancin' Fool, performed here before the actual release on "Sheik Yerbouti", so the song was actually fine tuned for that album, this is a "raw-er" version of that track, and thus it suffers a bit especially if you are used to the "Sheik" version. The video to this track is offered as a "bonus" under the "Tricks or Treats" section of the album package. The best part about this performance is the specific chatter Zappa has with audience members that he brings on stage.

The tracks continue with another often heard song "Easy Meat", originally from the "Tinseltown Rebellion" album. Again, this is a fairly weak performance until Zappa's extended guitar solo blasts into it bringing it to life. Next up is "Magic Fingers" from "200 Motels". This performance is one that isn't heard as often, and even tends to bring the Mothers feel into it even with Frank, Denny Walley and Tommy Mars doing the vocals in the same spirit as Flo and Eddie would. The crowd goes wild when the ultra-famous "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" comes in. Why it was decided to leave off the rest of the suite is the question, as this song by itself ends up becoming a basic novelty song, and the performance is definitely not the best when this song is presented without the rest of the suite.

"Conehead", a track that was later added to the studio album "You Are What You Is", was another favorite of the time because of the SNL act from back in the day. The repeating of the word "Remulak" gets rather boring until Zappa gives the cue to guest violinist L. Shankar to give a solo, making this the only thing really interesting about the track. This follows into a drum "sola" called "Zeets" which is unique only to this album. This is performed by Vinnie Colaiuta who was fairly new to the Zappa band at the time, and he gets to show why he was selected by Zappa with a great performance.

What follows now is pretty much a typical line-up from many a live album from Frank, and while it may appeal to the new listener or to the hard-core Zappa-phile that has to collect everything, you've heard it all before, except for the interesting repartee with the audience. There's "Stinkfoot" with a really great solo, the boring "Dinah-moe Humm" and "Camarillo Brillo" ending with the typical "Muffin Man". Dweezil and Joe had so many tracks to choose from, but they basically put together a typical show, and there are already a huge number of albums out there with most of the songs on them. Zappa even tends to flatline the spoken parts of the songs because he has recited them so often by this time. The best surprise is at the end with a 16-minute "encore" performance of "Black Napkins (The Deathless Horsie)" that for many would be reason enough to search for this album.

So, while it is a quality recording of parts of the show, it's all been done before and nothing stands out that would make a person want to purchase this live show over any other. It's good for the curious listener that doesn't already own many Zappa live albums and also for the completionist, otherwise, it's pretty average as far as his live albums are concerned.