Myra Elvira's Morbid Curiosities: Frank Zappa and The Rainbow Incident

Frank Zappa and The Rainbow Incident

Here is another happening that occurred to Frank Zappa and his band, as a bit of a continuation of the previous post.

After the fire at Montreux, the band went back to the hotel and most of the members voted to finish the tour. There were ten more dates, and each was sold out. Even though they agreed to do this, there was a problem-the band’s instruments were all lost in the fire. Zappa said,

“We had been using a few special instruments, including a customized Fender Rhodes piano, and other specialized synthesizer gear we couldn’t buy off a shelf in Switzerland. My guitar was gone. All of the stage lights were gone. The PA was gone.”.

The group ended up canceling a week’s worth of shows to find new equipment (one source states that they rented the gear they used for the Rainbow show). They had planned to get to England two days in advance for their big show at the Rainbow, and rehearse with with new gear. They were double booked and Frank wanted to ensure that everyone would feel used to their new equipment.

On December 10^th of 1971, they played the first show at the Rainbow in London, England, and through some problems (such as mic feedbacks), they made it through alright. At one point, when Frank was engaging the audience during some banter, he said, “Remember what happened the last time we played this?” then laughed as they went on to play ‘King Kong’ (the song that they had started to play before the fire at Montreux).

The band went offstage and came back to do an encore. Because of their location, they chose to play “I Want To Hold Your Hand” by The Beatles. Somehow, during this time, a man named Trevor Howell came on stage and punched Zappa in the back of the head and pushed him offstage.

“The band thought I was dead”. Frank said, in his autobiography.

Zappa fell 15 feet from the stage to the orchestra pit. His head landed over his shoulder, neck bent like it had been broken. Because of the position that his head landed in, it crushed his larynx, and permanently lowered his voice a 1/3 of an octave. Frank also had a broken rib, fractured leg, gash in his chin, a hole in the back of his head, and a paralyzed arm. Even worse, when Zappa was on the concrete floor, a monitor fell on top of him.

Chaos ensued in the crowd, and the rumors of Frank being dead flowed all around. For over an hour, no-one knew what was happening.

In his book, Frank stated that back then, he didn’t carry a bodyguard with him. The only “security”, was supplied by the local promoters. At the Rainbow show in particular, Frank said that the security was off smoking “reefer someplace” during the encore. No wonder Howell was able to get on stage.

Trevor Howell tried to escape but the road crew were able to hold onto him where he was taken backstage and held for the police. When asked why he did it, Howell gave two stories. The first story was that Howell’s girlfriend stated that she loved Frank Zappa, and Howell thought that Zappa was looking at the girlfriend. Zappa stated in his book that when on stage, there are so many lights, it is impossible to see anyone in the audience.

The second story Howell told was that he was pissed off that he wasn’t getting the value for his money.

Either way, he ended up spending a year in jail. Not before getting out on bail while Frank was in the hospital.

In the hospital, Frank couldn’t get any anesthetic because of his head injury, and passed out after a while. When he woke up, he was “in a bad-smelling room with beds all around, in a circle, with curtains hung between them. I remember the curtains parting in front of me and a black nurse coming in and seeing my face; like she had just seen a monster. I was pretty mashed up.”

Later, Frank was transferred to the Harley Street Clinic where he stayed for a month. At this point, he did have a bodyguard, because no-one knew whether Trevor Howell was crazy enough to come back or not.

After a month, Frank learned to walk on crutches, and had a cast on that went all the way up to his hip. He spent the better part of year in a wheelchair, and later had a prosthetic device for his leg. Once his leg finally healed, it turned a little crooked and shorter than the other, a phrase later seen in some of his music (Dancin Fool and Zomby Woof).

During his time in the wheel chair, Zappa refused to do any interviews for photo-shoots, and focused on making music. He came out with many projects, such as Just Another Band From L.A., Waka/Jawaka, The Grand Wazoo, Hunchentoot, and The Adventures of Greggery Peccary.

Once he regained mobility, Frank had to re-assemble a new band, as the members of the previous version essentially couldn’t just wait on him to heal, and had to get jobs.

In the end, there was still a lot of press surrounding the incident, at least in London. Not long before a planned show at the Oval Cricket Ground in London, Frank was in an interview when a girl entered the room. She handed him a bouquet and walked away. There was “quiet questioning” by other reporters, and then the girl stated that she was the girlfriend of Trevor Howell, the man who hurt Frank. She supposedly brought the flowers as a gift of remorse...but it turned out to be a fake publicity stunt.

As for Howell? After spending a year in jail, it is unsure of what happened to him. There is paragraph that floats around the internet about him though I am unsure of it’s veracity. It goes,

“Trevor Howell laid tarmac on roads around London for thirty years,1975-2005. On the night of the incident Trevor had smoked cannabis and taken LSD. He was with his girlfriend and he felt that Frank had made 'sexual gestures' towards his girlfriend. Trevor was over 6'2 and 16 stone and he managed to bypass the security and onto the stage. He attacked Frank and pushed him into the pit. The security held Trevor behind the stage and he was kicked and beaten until the police arrived. He spent a year in prison. Trevor overcame his drug use and turned to Buddhism, spending the later years of his life in Thailand and Asia, practicing Buddhism and forms of meditation. Trevor had a good heart and was a kind and giving person. He always regretted his actions that night and would have changed the outcome in hindsight. He learned from the negativity he created and became a positive person because of it.”