Labor Day weekend, a noteable bootleg and a weird ramble about women’s rights. What connection do these three things have? They’re all elements of the one and only time Frank Zappa performed at Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), on Saturday, September 1, 1984.
Zappa’s lone performance at SPAC was the final show of the first leg of the band’s North American tour before heading to Europe a week later for 28 shows stretching into mid-October. Just over a week after returning home, the band picked back up in the Northeast at Worcester Palladium in Massachusetts, with shows in NYC on Halloween at Felt Forum (now the Theater at Madison Square Garden) and the SUNY Stony Brook gym a few days later.
Snaking through the mid-Atlantic, this tour returned again to New York, with a November 16 show at SUNY Buffalo’s Alumni Arena, a whopping eight shows for Zappa heads across the Empire State, and a monster tour altogether with more than 100 shows in the calendar year.
Starting the tour on July 17, 1984 with six consecutive nights at the Palace Theater in Los Angeles, Zappa and his band would play four more shows in California that month, then head east through Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and the Midwest, arriving in the Eastern Time Zone on August 12 in Cuyahoga Falls, OH. After a day off and show in Toronto at Canadian National Exhibition Grandstand, the band played Jones Beach on August 16.
Now if you were really into Zappa at the time, you could have caught multiple shows in New York this month, starting at Jones Beach, then The Pier in NYC, the NYS Fair in Syracuse and the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, all in a 13-day span, with time to rinse and rest before the tour closer at SPAC on September 1. Not to mention the shows later that fall downstate and in Buffalo.
Among Zappa fans is a bootleg known as Kreega Bondola, which features a recording of Frank Zappa on September 1, 1984 at SPAC is one of the more widely circulated Zappa shows. This is thanks to the supposed soundboard source and first generation copy the recording stemmed from.
The name of the bootleg refers to a call from Tarzan, “kreeg-ah bundolo” which translates to “Beware! Kill!,” which would be the 1984 alternate name of “Let’s Move to Cleveland,” which also had pen names of “Canard du Jour,” and “(So) Young and Monde.” There is also a 14-minute version of “Kreega Bondola” which may explain how it became the title of the bootleg.
Additionally, songs from the SPAC performance, as well as the band’s December 23, 1984 show at Universal Amphitheater in Universal City (Los Angeles), California, were featured on the unofficial bootleg, All You Need is Glove, released in 1985.
With a lineup that was only found in the North America tour of 1984, the band included Frank Zappa (guitar, vocals), Ike Willis (guitar, vocals), Ray White (guitar, vocals), Scott Thunes (bass, vocals), Chad Wackerman (drums), Alan Zavod (keyboards) and Bobby Martin (keyboards, sax). Napoleon Murphy Brock had been on tour with the band from mid July until August 1, but was sidelined with stomach flu and missed the remainder of the US tour.
As a bootleg, Kreega Bondola was an entry level Zappa live performance for many of the day, offering a little something for everyone.
If you’re a casual Zappa fan or looking to wade into the waters, you’ll find “Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy,” “I’m The Slime,” “Keep It Greasey,” and “Muffin Man” spread throughout the two hour concert. Add in Zappa’s guitar going toe-to-toe-to-toe with Ray White and Ike Willis on a shredding version of “Let’s Move to Cleveland” and you’re waist deep in live Zappa.
For the serious Zappa heads out there, there are 24 songs spread across the show and encore, pulled from no less than 13 Zappa studio albums and records, a wide net cast across an audience that would only see Frank this one time at SPAC.
Opening with “Heavy Duty Judy” and “Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy” – a pair of Zappa and Captain Beefheart tunes – a seven minute “Advance Romance” followed, along “I’m The Slime” and the anti-MTV message that went along with it. Highlights include a short “What’s New in Baltimore?,” “Lucille,” “Teenage Wind” and “Sharleena,” and the stellar aforementioned version of “Let’s Move to Clevland.”
A pair of songs, “Cocaine Decisions” and “Nig Biz,” which were often played in succession, offered a message that outweighed the music. The first was Frank’s critical take on cocaine use/abuse and the decisions that come from those who use the drug, which also highlighted drummer Chad Wackerman’s use of electronic drums for toms (at Frank’s suggestion) along with standard snare, bass drum and cymbals. The latter is a hot take on the music industry, with the protagonist, a musician under contract with a record company, being made to feel like a slave, turning to drugs in order to be accepted. Both songs were critical of the music industry and factored in Frank’s sharp wit and words as he channeled personal views and experience into the message.
Then there is the encore break. Before closing the night, Frank received a letter on stage from a fan, reading it aloud for what is labeled as “Women’s Movement Rap” on the Kreega Bondola bootleg. The note made light of Frank’s attitudes towards women, to which Frank replied “Let me tell you something about women’s movement, there is only one good women’s movement,” leading to Frank referencing sex as the women’s movement which he is most deeply involved. And it doesn’t get less ‘weird’ by today’s standards as he keeps on going. (listen here)
The “Women’s Movement Rap” has been described by others as “possibly the dumbest thing Frank ever said on stage,” and that is likely true for the outspoken musician, but with songs “He’s So Gay,” “Bobby Brown,” “Crew Slut” and “Be In My Video” all part of this evening’s show, let alone live rotation, it was par for the course in 1984.
Closing the show post-‘rap’ were a smooth segue between “Camarillo Brillo,” “Muffin Man” and “Illinois Enema Bandit,” the latter of which stretches out for more than eight minutes, bringing the only Frank Zappa show at SPAC to a triumphant close. A unique show for sure in a heavy touring year for the workhorse composer and his band. Download the show here or listen below.
Frank Zappa – Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), Saratoga Springs, NY
Saturday, September 1, 1984
Setlist: Heavy Duty Judy, Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy, Advance Romance, I’m The Slime, Be In My Video, What’s New In Baltimore?, Lucille Has Messed My Mind Up, Ride My Face To Chicago, Teenage Wind, Truck Driver Divorce, Cocaine Decisions, Nig Biz, Sharleena, Keep It Greasey, Honey Don’t You Want A Man Like Me?, Carol You Fool, Chana In De Bushwop, Let’s Move To Cleveland, He’s So Gay, Bobby Brown, Crew Slut
Encore: (women’s movement rap), Camarillo Brillo, Muffin Man, The Illinois Enema Bandit
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