AndyAction wrote:
Hey all, I was hanging with ZPZ's booking agent (John from Pinnacle) backstage at the Beacon 12/17 show and he and another agent (was it you, Disco Boy? That's what John B. called you!) were discussing the RTF/ZPZ team up for the summer of 2011. Apparently, they had originally wanted to book the show at Carnegie Hall in NYC, but it wound up being at the Beacon Theater - so, I'm guessing that the RTF/ZPZ tour is indeed on! Personally, I prefer the Beacon for it's intimacy (approx. 2600 capacity) despite the legendary acoustics at Carnegie Hall. ZPZ's agent said that the RTF line-up was with Bill Connors, which is FAR more thrilling that Frank Gambale (who is such a cheeser!), but I think he just got the names confused.
There was much open discussion about the viability of Flo & Eddie touring with ZPZ, esp. with their tour manager (?) who was asking me if I thought it was a good idea. Of course I said yes - I think it's important for ZPZ to sprinkle in some FZ/MOI alumni in with the stellar personnel that Dweezil has assembled. As of 12/17, it didn't seem that it was a done-deal at all (Flo & Eddie).
Also discussed was the fact that pairing up ZPZ with other acts (jam bands, fusion bands, prog rock bands, etc.) doesn't necessarily boost ticket sales for the bill. The theory discussed was that the hard-core fan base of each band knows that "their" band will be playing a truncated set due to sharing the bill. The Dream Theater/ZPZ was referenced as evidence - apparently, ticket sales were better for ZPZ alone than the shows the tour they did with Dream Theater. Personally, I detest Dream Theater, which is why I passed on that tour.
That said, having Jean-Luc Ponty on board w/RTF obviously begs for the King Kong/ZPZ crossover & makes the RTF/ZPZ team up, which isn't the most organic fit to be blunt, make a lot of sense.
Thoughts?
-=A
ps. Disco Boy, if you are indeed the aforementioned agent - it was nice to meet you last Fri! What a show - had a blast! Sorry if posting any of this is in bad form or is a violation of personal "backstage" chat - my only intention is to spark lively discussion & get the details out to the fans that care!
I forgot to mention that during our discussion, the theme of the next ZPZ tour was going to be playing "Over-nite Sensation" and "One Size Fits All" in their entirety, which contradicts the Flo & Eddie alumni tour. They could both be in the works though, for all I know...
I'm not a booking agent and I wasn't at the Beacon Theater show last week. I wish I was, though! And I'm not sure why John was referring to me when you were talking with him? But I have had discussions with John through private message on this forum a few times.
RTF4 were supposed to include Connors in the line-up on this upcoming tour (after all, he, along with Chaka Khan and Ponty are on the new Corea, Clarke & White album entitled,
Forever, that's already been released in Japan and will be issued elsewhere in June...)...but for some reason, Connors dropped out, so they replaced him with Gambale.
Agreed on the point that some ZPZ fans won't come to the RTF4/ZPZ shows in the summer for some of the reasons you've already mentioned and since ZPZ will probably only get an hour playing time, tops. I would though! However, I was somewhat surprised that the Dream Theater/ZPZ tour last year didn't do as well as it should've.
Since ZPZ perform three or four North American legs per year (along with one or two UK/European legs annually), there'll be plenty of room for them to play
One Size Fits All &
Over-Nite Sensation in their entireties, tour with RTF4 AND tour with Flo & Eddie. But now the question for us here is, which markets will get one of these three line-ups (markets like, LA & NYC will probably get two of the three line-ups)?..
Thanks for the scoop!
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. RTF is everything I hate about fusion, along with most of Weather Report. That should be a total wankfest. 
