MUSIC

Colston Hall, Bristol (Wed 30 Nov)

This is weird. There's a biggish band on stage – two keyboards, bass, two guitars, a vibraphone/percussionist and one of those enormous drumkits with two bass drums that defined a certain murky period in rock's excessive past – but it's dwarfed by an enormous video screen on which a giant figure is playing guitar. The guy on screen is dead (now) – he's Frank, the Zappa who's being played. The mid-stage guitarist, listlessly strumming a backing rhythm to the guitar fireworks on-screen, is Dweezil, Son Of, and he's supposed to be the one doing the playing.

For about five years now Dweezil Zappa has been touring the world playing the music of his late iconic father to big audiences of old fans from The Day (i.e. me and my ilk) and younger generations who've stumbled on his legacy (e.g. my 20-something son, come along for the ride). It's a proper tribute band, in that they play the 'Apostrophe' album straight through with Frank's big ghost only appearing for 'Cosmic Debris'. But that's enough to blow the whole thing, really, as the enormity of his personality, arrogant stagecraft and devastatingly clever and original guitar playing charge the room only to fade away as the song ends.

The band are good, though, Dweezil included, with Billy Huilting's plangent vibraphone catching the distinctive quality Ruth Underwood originally gave to the Mothers and Ben Thomas's prowling vocals telling Frank's cynical and dirty stories with relish. All the musicians – and even a roadie – contribute vocals, creating the panoply of voices and doo-wop or soul harmony in-fills that the songs require. "There's a lot of solos," observes 20-Something and I realise how the rock world has moved on since the 70s and '200 Motels'. Dweezil contributes increasingly in this respect and he's not half bad, but he can't help be dwarfed in every way by the arched eyebrows of the 40-foot image behind him. In an ordinary tribute band that would be self-evident, but there's something alarmingly un-Oedipal about Dweezil'z Platonic shadow show that feels uneasy.

No such reservations for the huge crowd here, though, obligingly dancing like fools for 'Dancing Fool' and the inevitable hard rock of 'Muffin Man' that finishes things off and leaves them baying. Whatever the sub-texts this is still great music, post-modern before they called it that, and clearly Frank's is an absence whose presence will long be felt. (Tony Benjamin)

Copyright Tony Benjamin 2011