Frank Zappa always managed to do something cool. Twenty-five years after dying, he’s going on a full-length tour with his old band in the form of a hologram. Eyellusion, who’s Tupac hologram played alongside Snoop Dogg in 2012, is the cream of the crop when it comes to reanimation. The company just announced that its “The Bizarre World Of Frank Zappa” tour will begin in late 2018, and feature some of Zappa’s legendary accomplices. Ray White, Mike Keneally, Scott Thunes, Robert Martin and Joe “Vaultmeister” Travers will all travel with Zappa’s hologram.
The hologram will feature hours of unseen footage from Zappa’s early 1970s concerts. Eyellusion and the Zappa Family Trust have worked together on this project the whole way. Though his trust accepts Eyellusions vision, no one will ever know exactly what Frank Zappa would have thought of the idea. Regular people will wonder if the dead have any claim over the use of their body post-mortem, but the ultra-famous know that they’re images never go away. Some might wonder, who owns Frank Zappa?
Eyellusion at very least owns the rights to some of his concert footage from the early seventies. Ahmet Zappa, Eyellusion EVP, co-trustee of the Zappa Family Trust, and of course, Frank Zappa’s son, thinks it’s a great a idea that is in line with his father’s vision.
“As a futurist, and hologram enthusiast, Frank fearlessly broke through boundary after boundary as an artist and in honoring his indomitable spirit we’re about to do it again, 25 years after his passing,” he said.
According to Ahmet, Zappa’s tour will push “the limits of what anyone has seen holographically on stage before in a live venue.”
“My father and I actively discussed 3D and ‘holography’ and it was a concept he actively engaged in. He actually devoted half a chapter of his The Real Frank Zappa Book (1990) to this subject. This is a love letter and a journey celebrating the genius artistry of Frank Zappa. On a personal note, I feel like I am finishing something my father started years ago.”