The Pirate Years of Concert Touring - Rock Lighting Legend with Jeff Alder

Episode 345

Today we’re joined by Jeff, a true pioneer from the wild, formative years of rock concert touring — what he calls the “pirate years.”

Jeff recently published his book, How to Be a Lighting Guy (During the Pirate Years of Concert Touring), a firsthand account of building a career during the birth of modern concert lighting. From running liquid light shows in the early 1970s — including for Grand Funk before they were even Grand Funk Railroad — to experimenting with the first analog moving lights like the Cyklops, Jeff was there as the art and technology of live lighting were being invented in real time.

He worked with Fantasee Lighting, pushed for the early R&D of computer-controlled moving lights with Morpheus Lights, and directed or designed lighting for legendary artists including Warren Zevon, Jimmy Buffett, Steve Miller Band, Huey Lewis and the News, Santana, Cyndi Lauper, Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, and Grand Funk — who fittingly bookended his career.Jeff’s journey came to an unexpected halt in the mid-’90s due to a collapsed vertebrae, but his perspective on success, failure, and longevity is what truly defines his story.

As he writes in the final line of his book:“Though I have a lot of memorabilia… learning how to succeed at a lifetime of losing was my biggest reward.”He’s here to talk about how life on the road has changed, what it was like when concert touring had no rulebook, and why sometimes the greatest success doesn’t look the way you expect.

This episode is brought to you by Main Light and Artistry In Motion