Here is the beginning of a chronology of Jerry Abrams Headlighs' shows.
Jerry Abrams passing the darma of pre-digital age lightshow technology at an all night techno dance party.
October 22nd, 1999 MC Resista, with dj's on 4 turntables, Afterglow, Djinn, Terbo Ted vs. Asscrack. Live: Timothy Leary Memorial Choir (led by the Rev. Markus Hawkins on electric violin) and Arakne Konsept. Sonic reality orchestrated by S.P.A.Z. sound system. Extreme klown action and pyrotekniks by Fireflies featuring Joe Mama and Fred Ulysses Normal w/ surprise guests... optical saturation by Jerry Abrams HeadLights!!! a very rare appearance. promising an 8-projector setup including live liquids... this is one of the pioneering psychedelic lightshows which still utilizes slides and film created in the late Sixties... free afterparty at nearby warehouse.... 2 blocks away..... 9pm-4am, 21+, $5. all ages...... Transmission Theatre, 11th + Folsom. http://www.hyperreal.org/spaz 1.800.486.6862
At a Trade Show in 1994 to launch a new lighting product called Cyberlight (produced by American lighting company High End Systems) there was a legendary coming together of lightshow operators in a celebration of the end of the Sixties.
From the UK was John Andrews (Acidica Lights), Peter Wynne-Willson (Pink Floyd), John Lethbridge (Cerebrum) and Neil Rice (Optikinetics) and from the USA was Lowell Fowler (High End Systems/Prosperity Blackstone Lightshow), Wavy Gravy (Hog Farm), Dr. Timothy Leary, Jerry Abrams (Headlights) and Jefferson Starship.
Jerry Abrams recreated a Sixties light show with his extensive array of light show equipment that he was projecting onto a screen. This was then captured on video and displayed on a mesh screen that had been created using four Barco high-powered video projectors. In a clever blend of old technology meets new the audience could pick whichever world . the old or the new . they wished to enjoy at any time.
Timothy Leary had excerpts from his book, Chaos and the Cyberculture displayed as performance art in a booth and Wavy Gravy MC'd the proceedings in his usual inimitable style.
As well as Jerry Abrams, many of the UK visitors got their hands on some Solar 250's and Solar 575s and projected slides during the event that saw cutting edge Nineties lighting technology up against ancient low-wattage projection equipment from the Sixties.
On February 2 and 3, 1968, events took place for which the Crystal is perhaps best remembered. The Grateful Dead played two shows as part of the Great Pacific Northwest Tour, nicknamed "The Quick and the Dead" because the bill was shared with the Quicksilver Messenger Service. Also featured on the tour were the local band, P. H. Phactor, and the light artistry of Headlights.
These 1968 shows took place before the Grateful Dead's change to a mellow, laid-back sound typified by "Uncle John's Band," "Casey Jones," and "Truckin'" before the band's eerie succession of keyboardists' deaths; and way before the mass-marketing of Dead t-shirts, bumper stickers, and (gulp) neck ties. In fact, in February 1968, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron "Pig Pen" McKernan, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann were still largely unknown to most Americans. The band's debut album, The Grateful Dead, had been released just months before, peaking at only 73rd place on the record charts. However, within the psychedelic Haight-Ashbury circle--which in some ways extended north to Portland--nobody was cooler than the Grateful Dead.
The Grateful Dead's first performance in the city was at the Portland State Ballroom on Monday night, January 29. A snow storm kept many people away, but the Vanguard reported that the band's performance was phenomenal. Because of the newspaper's glowing review and the better weather, people flocked to SW 14th Avenue and Burnside in record numbers for the Dead's two shows at the Crystal Ballroom; the line of people waiting to get into the third-floor dance hall wrapped around the block. As each passing person paid the high admission price of $2.50 a ticket, Rena Welsh recalled that she collected dollar bills and coins in amounts never before seen at the Crystal. To keep the evening's cash receipts safe, the band let Welsh bring one of its drum cases into the box office. Periodically, she stashed a wad of bills into the drum case, and then sat on it. As a thanks for her night's work, the Dead's leader, Jerry Garcia, gave her a joint. Although she didn't smoke, Rena considered it the best tip she ever got. (O.K. It was the only tip she ever received at the Crystal, but it was still special.)
The music played by the Grateful Dead on its Tour of the Great Pacific Northwest has since been described as the ultimate example of the genre: "the apotheosis of psychedelic music," according to The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. While no reviews were published for the band's Crystal shows, the Portland State newspaper described the band's performance at the campus hall just days earlier. According to the Vanguard reporter, the Grateful Dead's concert of January 29 consisted of one album-length song that "kept hitting climaxes, bursting, sense tearing climaxes, until on some magic cue [the band members] relaxed, dropped back to reality, stringing us along on a slow, tantalizing, quivering rhythm until . . . another crescendo, another chain reaction of exploding box cars of nitroglycerine." Accentuating the musical experience, Headlights provided an amazing light show. The Vanguard exclaimed, it "strobed, Fellini'd, Walt Disney'd without a break for over four hours. If you blinked your eyes you missed a universe."
At the Crystal, parts of the Grateful Dead's performance was lost to a blinking of the power. Greg Kreitzberg remembered that in mid-song, the electricity feeding the band suddenly stopped. Since the Dead's two guitarists, bassist, and keyboardist all needed power for their instruments, "all they could do was fire up the drums," said Kritzberg. Everyone took the ballroom's electrical faults in stride, though, and the band even used the results on its second album, Anthem of the Sun (released later in 1968). To the dismay of all listeners of that album, except those who were at the Crystal that night, the recording stops in mid-song.
Excerpts from the Book "THE MANY LIVES OF THE CRYSTAL BALLROOM" by Tim Hills.
In late 1967 Greatful Dead set up the Great Northwestern Tour with the Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jerry Abrams' Headlights, taking care of all the arrangements for themselves.
Out of that energy came the Carousel Ballroom. The Dead, helped by the Jefferson Airplane, leased a huge Irish dance hall in downtown San Francisco and started a series of dances that brought back the enthusiasm of the good old days. The Carousel was the heyday of a musical form that encompassed a community of energy in celebration of life and consciousness in change.
From July 31st through August 5,1967, Bill Graham presented The Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead in concert at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto, Canada
Steve Crawford's Story:
Between the Masonic Temple, (the "Rock Pile" in those days), Massey Hall and Maple Leaf Gardens I saw a lot of great shows... Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Freddie King, Buddy Rich,...but the Airplane-Dead concert was my first concert of a major band and possibly one of, if not the best I've ever had the good fortune to witness.
Fred was into the music like no one I've known. He always had or was listening to all the hottest and best albums. I couldn't keep up, it was amazing. Luke and the Apostles were an interesting act, as well as of course the Dead. Pigpen was one of my heroes and I painted a good likeness of him which I hung on my wall for quite awhile, especially after hearing, sadly, of his still youthful passing.The Grateful Dead, as I realized then and in retrospect, were the perfect folkish, rockish, countryish with psychedelic lyrics warm-up for the amazing Jefferson Airplane.
The "Light Show by Headlights" was the most dazzling exhibit of effects I've ever seen (only seconded by Pink Floyd). As soon as they were ready to go (after the Dead's set and intermission ) everything happened at once; the awesome lights and a moving stage that moved forward as if it was this huge momentum of light and sound right in your face! The oil and water effects were second to none and as I remember, the O'Keefe Centre (now the Hummingbird Centre) had good acoustics. O'Keefe Centre that night was certainly an experience. Somehow, I had acquired 2 tickets for myself and a cousin who was a little older and kind of a greaser. (Fred and I had separate seats to the same concert.) ''White Rabbit'' was awesome and intense. ''3/5 of a mile in 10 seconds'' really cooked with Jorma and Paul's heavy, distortion-driven riffs (acid-rocked). I think it was pretty much near the end, but my goofy cousin wanted to go . So for some reason we left. (I wish I had stayed, especially after the story my brother told me after the show!)
After my brother acquired the poster from O'Keefe Centre we hung it proudly on our bedroom wall to remember the experience. After a couple of years, me being the more nostalgic one, (and also since my brother went to live in the U.S.A. for more than 25 years), I ended up with the poster. I took care of it for years. It still has a lot of sentimental value to me and always will. I am totally in awe of the fact that the poster is so rare and such an essential historical document, as well as very happily surprised. It would be nice to think it will stimulate disscussion and encourage study of the mystical as well as philosophical aspects of a very unique period in our history.
Thank you Bill Graham.