One thing I noticed is that the volume was lower for the Blunt Set. And you could at least hear all the instruments quite clearly.
The volume thing is important with any dome shaped room. Any room saturates at a particular volume level and a dome focusses the sound so that level is lower. The only way to avoid a terrible buildup of reverb is to keep the overall levels down. When Toto played at the Velodrome here, Just Ginger opened. They sounded fine, but when toto came on, the engineer pushed up the volume and everything went to hell.
From Wickipedia: Colaiuta's dedication to self-improvement is legendary: Dom Famularo, a famous drum educator and Colaiuta's friend, once told a story about Colaiuta opening his door while practising on a drum pad; after a few minutes of a chat on the door step, Colaiuta said: "I'm such a bad host, I haven't offered you anything! Do you want a pad?"
BTW - another Zappa anecdote:
Zappa was notoriously hard on his players too.
Steve Vai: That's impossible.
Frank: Well, I hear Linda Ronstadt is looking for a guitar player.
