Live-to-Film Review: Zombie Composer’s Cut Tour at Don Quixote
Composer Fabio Frizzi and his band rock the house with an electrifying live performance of the Zombie Composer’s Cut
Note: Since originally appearing on June 14, this post has updated with interview excerpts, additional photographs, and a review of the performance at Don Quixote in Los Angeles.
Italian soundtrack composer Fabio Frizzi, best known for his work with director Lucio Fulci, is touring the United States this fall in support of his 2023 album, Zombie Composer’s Cut, an expanded version of his score for the infamous 1979 gore opus. Starting in Brooklyn on September 5, the tour reached Los Angeles on September 26, after stops in Sacramento, San Francisco, and Fresno. Subsequent shows take place in San Diego on September 28 and Las Vegas on September 29.
The film known as Zombie in the U.S. was released as Zombie 2 in its native Italy, in order to cash in on George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), which had been retitled Zombie in that country. Directed by Fulci, Zombie 2 (also known as Zombie Flesh Eaters) has little in common with Romero’s film beyond gory depictions of zombies eating humans; it is perhaps best remembered for the outrageous (and outrageously effective) scene of a wooden splinter piercing a female victim’s eye. Otherwise, the movie offers a more traditional presentation of zombies, featuring an atmospheric Caribbean Island location and several references to voodoo as the source of the living dead.
Frizzi’s original soundtrack music (co-credited to Giorgio Tucci, a.k.a., Giorgio Cascio) used drum machines and synths to create texture and atmosphere. The droning synth melody of the main title theme, played over a simple bass drumbeat, was slightly reminiscent of Goblin’s music for Dawn of the Dead (Frizzi had previously collaborated with the band members on music for the film Perché Si Uccidono). The revised tracks for the Zombie Composer’s Cut album feature fuller arrangements for electric guitars, bass, and live drums – turning the live performance into more of a rock concert than a faithful live-to-film soundtrack performance.
In this interview at the Times Union, Frizzi notes that revising his music for the Zombie Composer’s Cut was a different experience from The Beyond Composer’s Cut he performed in 2019:
“In the case of The Beyond, I had the opportunity to work on a version of the film without music, so my scope for intervention was practically unlimited. In the case of Zombie, however, I had to work on the complete film, including the original music. And then I had to perform a magic trick – that is, compose some new themes that overlapped perfectly and became one with the original ones. At first, it seemed like an impossible feat; then, with application and a lot of work, it became a winning bet. Only one of the themes of the film, the most popular one, remained entirely the same.”
Regarding the experience of performing the music live and in synch with Zombie, he says:
“It is a concert, but it is also a real screening. In some key points I had fun emphasizing the music to get a strong reaction from the audience, which indeed always comes promptly.”
Released on limited edition vinyl, the Zombie Composer’s Cut is now a bit of a collector’s item, but you can stream a couple of sample tracks here.
Review: Fabio Frizzi performs Zombie Composer's Cut Live at Don Quixote in Los Angeles
Rating Scale
0 – Awful
1 – Poor
2 – Mediocre
3 – Good
4 – Great
5 – Excellent
Fabio Frizzi and his Frizzi 2 Fulci band turned it up to 11 at Don Quixote nightclub on Friday night, performing an ear-blasting live rendition of his much-augmented score for 1979’s cult classic Zombie, directed by Lucio Fulci. Instead of the relatively low-key synth tones from the original soundtrack, the live rendition featured a full rock ensemble that frequently overwhelmed the film, turning the show into more of a concert than a film-screening.
Zombie Composer’s Cut Live Review: Stealing Center Stage
Not content to serve as background musicians, the Frizzi 2 Fulciband figuratively took center stage – or at least the center of attention – and if the plotline got drowned out, it hardly mattered. Zombie is best remembered for its outrageous set pieces (a zombie fighting a shark, a wooden splinter piercing an eyeball in extreme closeup). Those sequences provoke loud vocal reactions from audiences; the music matched the cries of disgust and shouts of approval, merging into a colossal primal scream.
Highlights included the memorable main title theme, which reprises several times during the film, memorably during the infamous zombie-versus-shark sequence. The soundtrack version is great in its own right, but the enhancements from the live musicians, particularly the drummer. The rhythm of the original relies on a simple quarter-note bass drum beat with a synth snare and cymbal providing a polyrhythm on top; that foundation is still there but loaded with extra flourishes and fills that take the music to a new level. (Frizzi reused the cue in 1980’s City of the Living Dead, where it was titled “Mysteries Apotheosis,” and played in a superior arrangement that enriched the textures.)
Even more powerful than the main theme is the cue for the infamous eyeball scene, which abandons almost any pretense of being soundtrack music. The cue feels more like a stand-alone piece inspired by the sequence, unfettered by any need to serve the film, instead just doing whatever it needs to do to make the biggest aural impact imaginable. This is one of the few cues available to stream online (see link in main body of the article above).
Zombie Composer’s Cut Live Review: Encore!
Unlike Frizzi’s previous tour in support of The Beyond Composer’s Cut, Friday night’s show began with the screening. After the movie, instead of taking a break, the band immediately ran through a half-hour set, consisting of favorite tracks from Frizzi’s frequent collaborations with director Lucio Fulci. The overall feel was of a “greatest hits” compilation, with every cue a crowd-pleaser, particularly an impressive version of “Unreal Sounds” from City of the Living Dead (1980), which electric guitar replacing the acoustic sound of the original riff
Essentially an abridged version of the “Frizzi 2 Fulci” section from his previous tours, the set amounted to an extended encore instead of the second half of the show, but after the adrenalin-draining experience of watching Zombie with live music, the audience hardly felt cheated. Rather, the short follow-up set served as a perfect dessert after Zombie‘s main course of blood-soaked human entrails.
Zombie Composer’s Cut Live Review: Conclusion
Live-to-film performances are a mixed bag: the music can overwhelm the movie, but frequent passages without music prevent the performers from building their own momentum. Although we felt a little bit of that during Friday night’s performance, the Zombie Composer’s Cut Tour offers much more than a live rendition of a film score. The cues have been transformed from background music: they don’t just enhance the film; they pound the eardrums, demanding to be heard on their own terms. The result is a great show, highly recommended.
Fabio Frizzi’s Zombie Composer’s Cut tour appeared Don Quixote on September 27, 2024. The venue is located at 2811 E Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. Visit their website at donquixote.la, or call (323) 268-6339.
Credits: Fabio Frizzi performs the Zombie Composer’s Cut with his Frizzi 2 Fulci band, consisting of drummer Federico Tacchia, bassist Roberto Fasciani, guitarists Riccardo Rocchi and Francesco Saguto, and keyboardist Alessio Contorni.
