Feeling the love,
light show and all
Some musical experiences require more than memories to fully recreate. For instance, anyone who enjoys "disco fever" knows there's magic in hearing a DJ seamlessly segueing from song to song without missing a beat. Fans of '90s rock recall the exhilaration stage-diving into a mosh pit. And anyone old enough to remember the "psychedelic" rock concerts of the '60s knows the experience isn't complete without a light show.
Psychedelic groove
"The Summer of Love -- A '60s Experience"
Where: Pipeline Cafe, 805 Pohukaina St.
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Tickets: $10 pre-sale (includes free incense), available at Hawaii's Natural High, 339 Saratoga Road; $12 at the door (no incense)
Call: 589-1999 (Pipeline) or 926-3000 (Hawaii's Natural High)
Stage-diving was killed by lawsuits, disco DJs are probably still out there, and light shows may be coming back. Maybe it's the impact of those Jimi Hendrix retrospectives, but John Harmon says interest in the tie-dye, groovy era is booming.
"The fact that there's this interest made me realize that I could add the visual component to a show," Harmon said.
Noone in town is better qualified. Harmon founded the Original Eggshell Light Co. in California in 1968, and, thanks to his younger brother Bob, all the '60s gear, lights and art needed to stage an authentic psychedelic light show was preserved.
Harmon and Greg Azus of Hawaii's Natural High will present "The Summer of Love -- A '60s Experience" at Pipeline Cafe Monday, with the Piranha Brothers headlining the show. Kim Char Meredith will open the show with songs from her current album, "Give & Take," then get into the retro theme with a Janis Joplin tribute.
Harmon got into the light-show biz with a friend who specialized in stage lighting. Harmon handled the visual equipment -- overhead projectors, slides, movies, strobe lights, black lights and other gear that turned concerts into multi-media, mind-bending experiences.
Harmon stored his gear when he went to college in 1970, and chances are it would have all been trashed, but Bob found an opportunity to run some of John's silent movies in a pizza place two years later, and that led to an invitation to do lighting for a Brewer & Shipley concert. Bob reactivated Eggshell Lighting with John's blessing.
It's been years since Eggshell last did a light show, but the vintage equipment remains intact. "It's basically in pristine condition because it hasn't been used over the last 20 years. The slides are all my original slides from the '60s -- magazine covers, NASA shots, space stuff from the '60s," John said. "Anything that's a little odd or different."
"Part of the fun of a light show was the fluttering look of the movies. Sometimes we'd slow the projectors down or run them in reverse. Meantime, the whole thing that's holding it together is the oil-and-water show -- liquids that are worked on overhead projectors. Sometimes we'd put blackout places in the oils-and-waters and project a movie inside of an oil-and-water image."
He says the difference between a '60s-style light show and today's computer-driven effects and video clips is akin to the difference between a recorded CD-mix and a DJ freestyling or musicians jamming.
"A light show is all spontaneous interaction between the band and the operator as opposed to a computerized program. Everybody's got a different style and a different take on it, and it's different each time."
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