Frank Zappa / Steely Dan

Doug Dickeson Sep 14, 2022

Wow, that's 50 years ago. But here's as much as I remember…

Steely Dan were a complete unknown, but we'd heard "Do It Again" on the radio so it was nice to put faces to the song. They were very good, but nowhere near the powerhouse that they are now. And if memory serves, that was the only tour they did in that era (or maybe one of very few tours.) They were set up stage left in a pretty cramped area, and I was positioned pretty much right in front of center stage so I never really got a very good look at them.

FZ was a totally different story. He was recovering from being pushed off a stage about a year prior, and had a very noticeable limp. He was using a cane. And it wasn't much before that attack when the infamous burning down of the Montreux Casino. I guess he figured that Lincoln was a lot safer place to be.

The bass guitarist (can't remember who it was) had recently broken his left arm, and so they had a quick replacement guy that FZ called "Bird Legs". The band's bass guitarist had a sign with the diatonic scale written in magic marker, and was pointing out which notes "Bird Legs" was to be playing. Talk about NO PRESSURE!

All in all, it was quite the show.