Knebworth Goes Down The Tubes

By Roy Carr, Paul Du Noyer & Graham Lock

New Musical Express, 16 September 1978

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Lining up around is the latest Zappa crew: Ike Willis on guitar; Dennis Walley on steel guitar; Arthur Barrow on bass; Vince Colaiuta, drums; with Ed Mann on percussion and keyboards supplied by Peter Wolf and Tommy Mariano.

Though said to be not too fond of playing this li'l ol' country of ours FZ seems happy enough. We're off with a cheerful "Howdy, folks!" and a warm-up instrumental work-out called "Sound-Check", claimed to be very scientific though appearing disorganised as a bow to the great Rock Festival Tradition; "I guess some of you out there were conceived at this kind of thing."

And that's as much chat as we get for the night, the numbers being run together in a stylish, well-played set that's a satisfactory, if never startling exposition of Zappa's talents and those of his band.

Is much of Frank's notorious vitriol spent by now or is it merely subtler than before? For instance there's "Dancing Fool" for the disco boys, which strikes at the Newtonjohntravolta generation with almost gentle mockery. Sans guitar he strolls about with the elan of a cocktail crooner, punctuating words with crazed little dance-steps.

It's when he straps on the old axe that Zappa's magic is most apparent. Given a better brand of hair conditioner this man might have made a presentable guitar hero. As it ts he's just a great musician, particularly so on "Village Of The Sun" wherein he retreats to the stage's deepest recesses, delegating the vocals to Willis.

Of course, at any festival the actual performance can play a smaller part than the dynamics of the day itself in the equation creating crowd-response. By this time the Knebworth audience is respectfully attentive but maybe distracted by the nippy wind that's picking up, or perhaps succumbing to late-in-the-day fatigue.

Not that he goes without an encore, mind, re-emerging with a new song, "Bamboozled By love", solid but standard rock, Ike Willis again on vocals.

Hate to say it but it sounded like just another band from LA. Yet if the show remained unstolen it's fair to say that few could have had any complaint.

Now Frank was falling off British stages years before Fee Waybill got in on the routine. And one detects more than healed-up broken legs in common between the last and the next act — SFs The Tubes.

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