Zappa musicans played at private party

Denny Walley and Rolf Hedqvist. Photo: P. Öberg.

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What a party band! Yesterday Erik Palm, head of department at

NorrlandsOperan Musik in Umeå, Sweden, threw a great 50th birthday party. On stage were ex Frank Zappa sidemen Napoleon Murphy Brock and Denny Walley, and Mats Öberg and Morgan Ågren.

The festivities took place in an old factory building by Umeälven (the Umeå river).
Guitarist Jimmy Ågren and his band opened with their high energy blues rock. Kind of like AC/DC meets Captain Beefheart. Then Denny Walley came up and played songs from his rhythm & blues repertoire plus the Zappa song Bamboozled By Love. The "backing" musicians during the evening were keyboardist Mats Öberg, drummer Morgan Ågren, bass player Gustav Hielm and the Jimmy Ågren band with Rolf Hedqvist on bass.
Zappa lead vocalist Napoleon Murphy Brock opened his part of the show with some Christmas songs with a little Broadway touch, then the travel into Zappa land started with Advance Romance. Napoleon is such a showman. Never a dull moment on stage.
Denny did a hot slide solo, pretty much like on the Bongo Fury version. Definately goosebumps category. We also got to hear Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance, What's The Ugliest Part Of Your Body?, Uncle Remus, Magic Fingers, The Idiot Bastard Son and the suite from the Roxy & Elsewhere album: Village Of The Sun/Echidna's Arf/Don't You Ever Wash That Thing.

Left to right: Morgan Ågren, Napoleon Murphy Brock, Erik Palm, Mats Öberg, Gustav Hielm. Photo: P. Öberg.
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Napoleon and Mats also did a nice version of I Love The Blues, She Heard My Cry by George Duke. Last songs were San Ber'dino and Muffin Man. A great evening! Erik looked like he had the time of his life, of course.