Zappa and Lennon

Frank Zappa apparently never thought much of The Beatles. His “We’re Only In For The Money” is a direct and plain parody of the famed Beatles’ album “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. However, on June 6th, 1971, Lennon and Zappa appeared live together at the Fillmore East in New York City. It stands as John Lennon’s most daring live performance. Lennon released the tapes on Some Time in New York City/Live Jam in 1972. Zappa re-edited the material 20 years later for his own Playground Psychotics.
There was a falling out between Lennon and Zappa when Lennon remixed the tracks for his Live Jam album. Zappa disagreed about the renaming of a song, the Spector mix, the mixing out of some of his band members contributions and the mixing in of applause where it didn’t belong. Here’s an interview with Frank Zappa, telling the story of the Fillmore incident involving John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
The 2005 remastered reissue of Some Time in New York City/Live Jam on a single disc omits much of the live material with Zappa, so if you want to hear the full Lennon/Spector treatment of these tracks you need to get the 1990 2CD release, or the 2007 Japanese version.
This film appeared a few years ago, shot by a journalist in the audience.

The full 26:30 version of this film is included on the “I Read the News Today” DVD title by underground label MCP.
More concert photos from the event can be found (and bought) here.