Zappa Plays Zappa

On Dweezil Zappa's April 26, 2025 Toronto Show

It was a spontaneous decision. Social media advertising works sometimes. Twenty-four hours before Dweezil Zappa’s ROX(POSTROPH)Y Tour 2025 stop in Toronto (see Danforth Music Hall setlist), I bought a ticket.

Not that I’m a Frank Zappa (1940-1993) fan. At least, I wasn’t.

Not because I didn’t like Frank’s music, but because I knew almost nothing about it. I kind of liked Frank. As a personality, counterculture weirdo.

Last year, I read Moon Zappa’s memoir and learned more than I needed to know about the Zappa family. Moon didn’t write much about Frank’s music, though she did note that her brother Dweezil got Frank’s guitars after their father died of cancer.

At least one of those guitars was in Dweezil’s hands on April 26th.

Dweezil Zappa with Frank’s guitar, Toronto, April 26, 2025

Dweezil even handed it to an audience member, an 11-year-old superstar.

At one point, Dweezil said introducing Frank’s music to new generations was his purpose. Could Frank’s art still have purpose? Could it find new audiences?

Most of the audience at the Toronto show was, well, old. Standing in line before the show, the dude in front of me asked me how many times I’d seen Frank. Um, none.

Prior to this show, when I thought of Frank I thought of this:

Also, this:

Which is to say, I could name two Frank Zappa songs: Valley Girl and Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow. I had heard the former and somehow absorbed knowledge of the latter.

So, every song Dweezil played on April 26th was new to me, except Rush’s Tom Sawyer (on duck call).

In the room, it was much louder than this video suggests. The audience roared. Dweezil giggled. The previous song had ended with a bit of duck call that morphed into O Canada, then Dweezil joked that they thought they’d play Tom Sawyer, then the audience responded with such force that they did.

Dweezil also played a Van Halen song that kept pace with Eddie. Dweezil is a scorching guitar player, without any of the posing or ego struts. He lets his fingers do the talking. On the WTF podcast #688 (March 10, 2016), Dweezil talks about opening the front door one day to find Eddie Van Halen standing there, wearing the same duds he’d recently worn in a VH music video. Eddie had dropped by to see Frank. Dweezil asked him to show him some guitar tricks. He did. They’ve stuck.

My overall take on the show?

It was super fun. In a couple of the songs, I felt transported to San Francisco 1969, true psychedelia. Other songs felt like MAD Magazine set to music. Is there a weirder lyricist than Frank? He’s even more bizarre than John Lennon at his most surreal.

2025 certainly feels as super surreal as 1975. So I would answer in the affirmative that Frank’s music continues to speak to the contemporary blah blah blah. His fans are certainly deeply passionate. Anyone looking for something outside the mainstream could do well worse than to follow Frank down a slimy Youtube rabbit hole.

ADDENDUM:

I should add that after the show I picked up a slice of Pizza Pizza at Broadview and Danforth, scanning the late-night urban scene: the beggars, the passed out, the rowdies, those like me, the anonymous zombies. I hopped the subway to Main Street, then picked up the GO to Scarborough. The 11:32 p.m. train was packed with Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys and Metallica t-shirts. The Leaf fans were depressed following the team’s loss to the Senators in Ottawa. The Metallica fans were riding hyped waves of adrenaline. Seek & Destroy, man! A Motley Crew after a motley night. O Canada.