At a groovy new nightclub show, people party like it's 1966.

Performed on Saturday nights at the Flamingo on W. 21st St., "1966" is meant to re-create the sexy, sweaty scene at a Sunset Strip rock club during the swinging '60s.

That means a pack of seven shimmying go-go girls done up like 20th century foxes - big hair, shiny miniskirts and knee-high boots - plus deejay Verockina spinning pop songs of the times. A four-man band provides the raw, hard-driving rock and blues tunes - think the Doors at L.A.'s Whisky A-Go-Go, just before hitting it big.

"1966" is all about good vibrations, says producer Judy Jacksina. But not "Good Vibrations," the universally panned musical built around songs of the Beach Boys. "It's not supposed to be like all these 'jukebox musicals' that are bringing in the canon of songs we grew up with, and then putting stories to them," says Jacksina.

"That summer [in 1966], there were something like 20 of these clubs on the Strip within a one-mile radius of each other, and something big was happening inside them," she says. "This was the music that led a revolution. So instead of stringing up a story to go with the music, the music is the story."

Bouncing from elevated platforms to the stage, the dancers go-go old-school with the frug, the pony, the watusi and the jerk - before giving way to a 1 1/2 hour set by the band.

"It's a dichotomy," says Jacksina. "We open with the estrogen and then go with the testosterone."

Like the Doors, the show's band comprises keyboard, guitar and drums - and a leather pants-clad singer whose suggestive posturing and howling evokes a youthful Jim Morrison on a bourbon bender.

But it's no accident the "1966" playlist is heavy on Doors songs, including "L.A. Woman," "Soul Kitchen" and "Back Door Man."

Not only are Morrison & Co. the best-known act to emerge from the L.A. rock scene, their music is often reflective of the decade's dark side of social and political unrest, says musical director Doug Katsaros.

"There's a lot of happy-happy music in the show," says Katsaros. "But a lot of the songs the Doors were doing had these deep, secular, overt and alcoholic references to what was going on at the time.

"The fun time that the audience walks into with the go-go girls dancing is in marked contrast to later on, when the band blows everyone away with this rocking, sexual music. It allows them to [tap] into the darkness of a live band in a '60s club," he adds.

"The entire scene was so sexual and raw," says Jacksina, "and we're just looking to capture what was happening in all those clubs."

Originally published on February 11, 2005