Liquid Light Shows

 Liquid Light Shows.

by Pete Clemons.

Liquid light shows are a form of light art that surfaced in the mid 1960s as an accompaniment to electronic music and avant-garde theatre performances. They were later adapted and evolved which added to, and became a staple for, the performances of the massive rock tours of the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, for many bands, a show that includes graphics and visuals still exist today.

This meeting of ideas, brought by the light artists and musicians, seemed to do no harm at all in terms of creativity. The music, the lighting and the ambiance appeared to compliment each other as the ideas bounced around off one another. And the added media publicity, it brought, seemed to further highlight the scene.

A Melody Maker gig review from early 1967, of groups who later became household names, described the ambiance as 'some very groovy picture slides which attract far more attention than the groups themselves, as they merge, blossom, burst, grow, divide and die'. All of a sudden it was no longer relevant that a group could play Wilson Pickett or James Brown songs.

During late 1966 and early 1967 the public was beginning to get worried about all this psychedelia stuff. The News of the World newspaper, that had had a hand in a Rolling Stones drug bust, had now set its sights on these 'freak outs', 'happenings' and 'raves'.

The fumiest part of that infamous  article though was where it mentioned that the headline band had, on one of its gig adverts, described themselves as social deviants. It turned out that 'The Social Deviants' was actually the name of the support band.

Earliest forms of these light shows were essentially home made contraptions. Medical slides paired together. Various colourful liquids were forced between them which were then viewed through a projector supported on a wooden frame.

One of the earliest of these lighting shows was 'The Fantasia Light Circus' who worked with bands such as Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and the Pretty Things at venues like the Middle Earth in London. And one of the creators of the light circus was Mick Brockett who arrived in Germany during 1969 after touring the show around Europe as an independent light show.

During the summer of 1969, Mick teamed up with a band called Prophecy (Nektar without Roye Albrighton) at a week long gig at the Camera Club, in Furth. Prophecy bass player, Derek 'Mo' Moore, attended Mick's show at "Beat Club" in Langelsheim.

Soon after Prophecy became Nektar during November 1969. At the same time, Mo was looking to enhance the Nektar presence on stage. Nektar was definitely looking for something unique to complete the bands psychedelic image so Mick, an admirer of Nektar's sound, joined the group as "light–musician" on January 10th, 1970 in Hamburg.

As Mick learned the music he was more able to choreograph the lights as opposed to just randomly flashing them. As such, Nektar's original light show evolved from the Fantasia Light Circus and featuring Mick Brockett providing the rhythmic liquid, slide light shows, on one large white screen.

Today, Mick Brockett thinks the light shows were prematurely abandoned by the rock world. That said though, many bands have moved on to lasers that skim over the audience.

At times the light show became the center of much attention. With a band like Nektar the lights somehow managed to steal the show from the band. Quite often, they were the most talked about part of a gig. But not to the detriment of the music.

Todays light shows and visuals are far more elaborate and sophisticated than those early happenings. But there is little doubt though that many of those pioneer light shows influenced the way future music tours were developed through the years by other bands.

Birmingham Band Tea and Symphony were another bands with a fantastic light show to match their psychedlia. They played the Coventry Arts Umbrella club in August 1970 and many other venues.

In 1973 Rob Dalton of Dream Discos in Rugby contacted Trev Teasdel who ran Hobo Coventry's music magazine of the time, to supply some material on his discos and equipment - Rob was pioneering a new computerised system - read about it on this link https://covdiscoarchive.blogspot.com/2015/04/dream-discotheques-and-mood-lighting.html