Frank Zappa, You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Volume 2

Frank Zappa is like an ogre. He has layers.

Either you 'get' him, or you don't. There are no people who 'sort of like Frank Zappa.'

Either you love an artist who can write a song in 13/16 with titles like "No Waiting for the Peanuts to Dissolve" or you dismiss the sophomoric humor, scatological lyrics and one octave voice.

His single disc greatest hits, ironically titled Strictly Commercial, is a poor introduction to an artist as far-reaching as Zappa and it bypasses an entire slice of his career. His live music.

Luckily for everyone, when he went to Ryko, he was contracted to deliver 12 discs worth of live material for the label, and he did so with the series You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore (Volumes 1-6).

Volume 2, the Helsinki Concert, is the only set to have both discs dedicated to one band, the 1973-74 band. Recorded near the end of the tour in Finland, it highlights one of Zappa's better bands, featuring Napoleon Murphy Brock (guitar/sax/vocals), George Duke (keyboards/vocals), Ruth Underwood (percussion), Tom Fowler (bass) and Chester Thompson (drums).

Just short of two hours long, it is the sound of a band at the top of their game. As the liner notes proclaim, this is what happens when supremely talented musicians play the same material for more than a year and become intimately familiar with it. Not only are some of the songs played at much faster tempos than normal (or on the similar Roxy & Elsewhere album), but Zappa is able to coax magic from the band on stage on songs not even on the set list.

Satumaa, a Finnish tango, is a piece that the band attempts on stage without any practice. Zappa has to ask the house to leave the stage lights on to allow the band to read the music. For 90 seconds, the band faithfully follows the sheet music, even trying to sing along in Finnish, before segueing seamlessly into a Finnish funk freak-out.

Montana, on the other hand, isn't close to the song he planned at the beginning of the evening. First, someone in the crowd asks for 'Whipping Post', to which he answers "Sorry, we don't know that one."

Then, after two false starts, you hear Zappa ask "It's too fast for you?" to someone in the band, two of whom were sick with a stomach flu. [You find all this out from the liner notes and the stage banter.] As the solo starts, he quips "It's such a ballad at this tempo." Playing off the request for 'Whipping Post', Zappa alters the lyrics, and even breaks into the riff at the end of the guitar solo.

Only the extraordinary musicians that Zappa surrounded himself with could pull off feats like this on stage and they do so with glee and abandon.

Other highlights include "Inca Roads", "Pygmy Twylyte" and "Village of the Sun" where the band chugs along doing whatever Zappa asks of them.

This isn't music for everyone, especially the 24 minutes of "Dupree's Paradise". This is music for fans of musicianship.

This is for people who enjoy listening to live bands play complex music, at break neck pace, insanely well.

One of my favorite live albums of all time, YCDTOSA Volume 2 ranks somewhere in my top 25.