{"id":130,"date":"2021-05-08T15:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T14:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/2021\/05\/08\/liquid-light-shows\/"},"modified":"2021-05-08T15:31:00","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T14:31:00","slug":"liquid-light-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/2021\/05\/08\/liquid-light-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Liquid Light Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

 Liquid Light Shows.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

by Pete Clemons.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

Liquid light shows are a form of light art
\nthat surfaced in the mid 1960s as an accompaniment to electronic music and
\navant-garde theatre performances. They were later adapted and evolved which
\nadded to, and became a staple for, the performances of the massive rock tours
\nof the 1970s and 1980s. In fact, for many bands, a show that includes graphics
\nand visuals still exist today.<\/span><\/p>\n

This meeting of ideas, brought by the light
\nartists and musicians, seemed to do no harm at all in terms of creativity. The
\nmusic, the lighting and the ambiance appeared to compliment each other as the
\nideas bounced around off one another. And the added media publicity, it
\nbrought, seemed to further highlight the scene.<\/p>\n

A Melody Maker gig review from early 1967,
\nof groups who later became household names, described the ambiance as ‘some
\nvery groovy picture slides which attract far more attention than the groups
\nthemselves, as they merge, blossom, burst, grow, divide and die’. All of a
\nsudden it was no longer relevant that a group could play Wilson Pickett or
\nJames Brown songs.<\/span><\/p>\n

During late 1966 and early 1967 the public
\nwas beginning to get worried about all this psychedelia stuff. The News of the
\nWorld newspaper, that had had a hand in a Rolling Stones drug bust, had now set
\nits sights on these ‘freak outs’, ‘happenings’ and ‘raves’.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fumiest part of that infamous  article though was where it mentioned that
\nthe headline band had, on one of its gig adverts, described themselves as
\nsocial deviants. It turned out that ‘The Social Deviants’ was actually the name
\nof the support band.<\/p>\n

Earliest forms of these light shows were
\nessentially home made contraptions. Medical slides paired together. Various
\ncolourful liquids were forced between them which were then viewed through a
\nprojector supported on a wooden frame.<\/p>\n

One of the earliest of these lighting shows
\nwas ‘The Fantasia Light Circus’ who worked with bands such as Pink Floyd,
\nFleetwood Mac and the Pretty Things at venues like the Middle Earth in London.
\nAnd one of the creators of the light circus was Mick Brockett who arrived in
\nGermany during 1969 after touring the show around Europe as an independent
\nlight show.<\/p>\n

During the summer of 1969, Mick teamed up
\nwith a band called Prophecy (Nektar without Roye Albrighton) at a week long gig
\nat the Camera Club, in Furth. Prophecy bass player, Derek ‘Mo’ Moore, attended
\nMick’s show at “Beat Club” in Langelsheim.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soon after Prophecy became Nektar during
\nNovember 1969. At the same time, Mo was looking to enhance the Nektar presence
\non stage. Nektar was definitely looking for something unique to complete the
\nbands psychedelic image so Mick, an admirer of Nektar’s sound, joined the group
\nas “light\u2013musician” on January 10th, 1970 in Hamburg.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Mick learned the music he was more able
\nto choreograph the lights as opposed to just randomly flashing them. As such,
\nNektar’s original light show evolved from the Fantasia Light Circus and
\nfeaturing Mick Brockett providing the rhythmic liquid, slide light shows, on
\none large white screen.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, Mick Brockett thinks the light shows
\nwere prematurely abandoned by the rock world. That said though, many bands have
\nmoved on to lasers that skim over the audience.<\/span><\/p>\n

At times the light show became the center of
\nmuch attention. With a band like Nektar the lights somehow managed to steal the
\nshow from the band. Quite often, they were the most talked about part of a gig.
\nBut not to the detriment of the music.<\/span><\/p>\n

Todays light shows and visuals are far more
\nelaborate and sophisticated than those early happenings. But there is little
\ndoubt though that many of those pioneer light shows influenced the way future
\nmusic tours were developed through the years by other bands.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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 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, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsrainbow.com\/coventrygigs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}