How The Velvet Underground created the first rock light show
Rock and roll has always been about bringing a bit of a spectacle to everything you do. No band is going to become the biggest group in the world by just standing there playing instruments, so you might as well give the audience something to remember by the time the final note rings out during every performance. While many artists tried putting different effects together during their tenure, The Velvet Underground were responsible for putting the first-ever light show on the live stage.
For anyone remotely interested in Lou Reed’s merry band of eccentrics, hearing them revamping the light show was probably a no-brainer. Throughout their time as a creative unit, Reed was known for bringing pieces of art into his music, whether that was through making discordant jams on White Light White Heat or creating songs so disturbing that they wouldn’t even touch the radio stations.
At the same time, the band’s off-kilter brand of rock and roll also came from their ties to the art scene. After being brought together by pop artist Andy Warhol, the outfit would eventually take their songs to the live stage. They made their first handful of gigs under Warhol’s festival, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable.
While the show’s title tends to sound like a random series of words made by a self-pretentious AI bot, the performers were much more avant-garde than any rock festival was looking to do. Instead of performing in a live setting that invited any fan willing to fork over a few bucks, the band would ultimately be draped in shadows throughout half of the show, with light illuminating their silhouettes.
Since no one was focusing on the fresh faces playing the music, the show was known for making extravagant lighting effects to dazzle the listeners while the music played. Especially if given the right amount of psychedelic drugs alongside the performance, this would have been a radical way of viewing the counterculture, as if to simulate the effects of acid without having to take it.
From the band’s perspective, this was everything they had been working towards since the beginning of their career. Every piece of their music was about combining the avant-garde side of art with rock and roll, so why not lean into that when it came to the live show? Since no one would sing an idol like Mick Jagger, they could see something equally stimulating even if they didn’t need to see the group.
While the group may have been looking to make something that no one had ever heard before, the rest of the world latched onto what they were doing with the light shows. In the wake of The Velvet Underground alone, David Bowie would turn in some of the greatest rock and roll extravaganzas of all time using different light shows as if to simulate the visuals of an alien descending from the heavens.
From then on, the use of various light shows would become expected at concerts rather than the norm. As The Who started paving the way for arena rock, the light shows during songs like ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ would have an enormous impact on the bands that followed, from the glam metal acts in the 1980s to the staples that populate the summer shed circuit to this day.
While The Velvet Underground may have just been looking to make something unique when it came to the rock show, they inadvertently ignited a fascination with what could be done with the musical spectacle. Like all of their greatest moments, Reed and co. made advancements that wouldn’t be appreciated until well after the fact.
