Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention - Garrick Theatre, New York, NY, May 24, 1967

The Garrick Theatre was located upstairs to the more famous Café Au GoGo. Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention played here for 6 mounth in 1967. Their shows became a combination for improvisation coupled with the incredible talents of the band as well as the famously tight performances of Zappa’s music. Zappa decided to rent the theatre throughout summer to September 5th. The show, occasionally entitled Pigs & Repugnant, evolved into extended musical pieces. Towards the end of May it was decided to re-launch the show as an off-off-Broadway revue entitled Absolutely Free to tie in with the release of the second album by the Mothers of Invention, released on May 26, 1967. Much like their 1966 debut Freak Out!, the album is a display of complex musical composition with political and social satire. Although Zappa later claimed that the album and show having the same name was a mere coincidence. The press reviewed the show: "Their music is also, more often than not, frankly hostile – both in its headachey volume and in those lyrics. As pure sound, though, this approaches genius. For the Mothers, which we might loosely call a rock and roll group of seven males, are wildly hirsute, sartorially shaggy and arrogant of posture, try to think more in terms of the Hell's Angels without their bikes. Visual chaos is compounded by the projection of throbbing patterns on a huge screen behind the ensemble and by such distracting on-stage antics as smearing a banana on a dismembered doll torso... The Mothers of Invention are part of a social phenomenon, they are good at what they do, and an evening at the Garrick is emphatically instinctive. Maybe more." The extended run at the Garrick were afforded the time to work out what the Mothers wanted to do and experiment with the audience to establish how much they could get away with on stage.