Frank Zappa’s Halloween Live Series Continues With Box Set of Famed 1978 Residency

Frank Zappa’s famed and fiery Halloween 1978 residency at New York’s Palladium will be the focus of an upcoming box set, the latest in a long series of live albums revolving around the guitarist’s favorite holiday.

Halloween 78, out Oct. 24 via Zappa Records/UMe, will be released in a series of formats, including a 5-CD Super Deluxe Edition that features Zappa’s entire October 31, 1978, performance as well as a bonus gig from earlier in the Palladium residency on October 27.

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The box set is the fourth in the series of Zappa Records’ trick-or-treat-related releases, following 2017’s Halloween 77, 2019’s Halloween 73, and 2020’s Halloween 81. Like those previous sets, Halloween 78 comes complete with a Zappa-inspired monster mask, this time fashioned after the devil, complete with a red pitchfork.

“Frank’s relationship with his New York audience, a very special collection of what he called ‘New York’s Finest Crazy Persons,’ is the stuff of legend,” Zappa “vaultmeister” Joe Travers said of the release in a statement. “1978 seemed the apex for the holiday event. FZ exclaimed, ‘This is it! This is the BIG ONE’ as he addressed the crowd in his opening monologue on Halloween night, and it surely was.”

Taking place just a few months before Zappa’s pivotal 1979 — a year that saw the rocker release Sheik Yerbouti and the Joe’s Garage trilogy — the Palladium shows featured early takes on tracks from both LPs, including “Keep It Greasy,” “Watermelon in Easter Hay,” “Packard Goose,” “Bobby Brown Goes Down,” and “Dancin’ Fool.”

Ahead of Halloween 78’s release, Zappa Records and UMe have shared the performance of the guitar improvisation “Ancient Armaments” from the October 31 gig in its unedited form:

In addition to the 5CD set, Halloween 78 will also be available as a 2-LP set — pressed on either  “Candy Corn” or “Blood Splatter” color vinyl — featuring highlights from the Halloween shows. All formats are available to preorder now.

Halloween 78 Super Deluxe Edition Track List
Disc 1: Live At The Palladium, NYC / 10-31-78
1. 10-31-78 Show Start
2. Ancient Armaments
3. “Happy Halloween Everybody!”
4. Dancin’ Fool
5. Easy Meat
6. Honey, Don’t You Want A Man Like Me?
7. Keep It Greasy
8. The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
9. City Of Tiny Lites
10. Pound For A Brown
11. Thirteen
12. The Story Of Ms. X
13. Nancy

Disc 2: Live At The Palladium, NYC / 10-31-78 – Continued
1. Dinah-Moe Humm
2. Go Cry On Somebody Else’s Shoulder
3. Little Rubber Girl
4. The Idiot Bastard Son
5. Bobby Brown Goes Down
6. Conehead
7. Suicide Chump
8. Little House I Used To Live In
9. Watermelon In Easter Hay
10. Stink-Foot

Disc 3: Live At The Palladium, NYC / 10-31-78 – Continued
1. Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance
2. Peaches En Regalia
3. Strictly Genteel
4. Sofa #2
5. Packard Goose
6. Magic Fingers
7. Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow
8. Nanook Rubs It
9. St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast
10. Father O’Blivion
11. Rollo
12. Camarillo Brillo
13. Muffin Man
14. Black Napkins / The Deathless Horsie

Disc 4: Live At The Palladium, NYC / 10-27-78 – Show 1
1. 10-27-78 Show 1 Opening
2. Dancin’ Fool
3. Easy Meat
4. Honey, Don’t You Want A Man Like Me?
5. Keep It Greasy
6. The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
7. City Of Tiny Lites
8. A Pound For A Brown
9. Bobby Brown Goes Down
10. Conehead
11. Dance Contest

Disc 5: Live At The Palladium, NYC / 10-27-78 – Show 1 – Continued
1. The Black Page #2
2. Dance Contest Aftermath
3. Little House I Used To Live In
4. Magic Fingers
5. Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow
6. Nanook Rubs It
7. St. Alfonzo’s Pancake Breakfast
8. Father O’Blivion
9. Rollo
10. “Let Me Explain This To You. . .”
11. Dinah-Moe Humm
12. Camarillo Brillo
13. Muffin Man
14. Peaches En Regalia

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