THE BEST BAND YOU NEVER HEARD IN YOUR LIFE

This is a fun live album, and absolutely fantastic in some parts, but it also suffers from a problem that plagued many of Zappa's later concerts. During this tour, Jimmy Swaggart, the televangelist, was caught in a hotel room with a prostitute. Zappa found this hilaious, and doctored many of his songs to be about the incident. In the short term it may have been funny. But now, decades later, it ruins the effect of the songs. But Frank was like that. He would often pick up on something he found funny, usually a word or a phrase, and drop it throughout the concert.

Despite that, there are some great versions of some Zappa favorites here. "Zombie Woof", Inca Roads", "Florentine Pogen", and even "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbeque" are all worth buying this CD set for. And there are more cover songs here than on any Zappa CD I know of. "Ring of Fire", with Mike Keneally filling in for Johnny Cash (who was supposed to join the band on stage, but cancelled due to his wife's illness) is fun. "Purple Haze" and "Sunshine of Your Love" are downright weird, but good. "Stairway To Heaven", mostly played reggae style, is wonderful. But the best cover, and possibly the best song on the album, is Ravel's Bolero, played almost completely straight (save for a "My Sharona" reference).

If you can ignore Frank's quirks, this is a very good album.