It was during a concert at the Toronto Rock & Roll Revival on September 13th 1969 the tradition of holding up lit matches and lighters during Rock Shows began. Before The Plastic Ono Band with John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Claption, Klaus Voormann and Alan White came onstage, the MC Kim Fowley asked the audience to light their lighters to welcome them. It became a phenomenon not long after, whenever a Rock Ballad performed at concerts or before concert encores. It does not surprise me that such an honored tradition was birthed at a performance of John Lennon. We do not really have a performer today that symbolizes Peace and Equality to the degree that John Lennon did back then. It felt like that was what he lived for and was so passionate to the extent of being arrested and eventually shot and killed. Few among us have believed so strongly in Peace to suffer such a consequence.
Plastic Ono Band
The Plastic Ono Band is a conceptual supergroup formed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 before the dissolution of the Beatles. Among the various other members of the band were Eric Clapton, artist Klaus Voormann, future Yes drummer Alan White,Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, & friends, the Who‘s drummer Keith Moon, New York band Elephant’s Memory, Billy Preston, Nicky Hopkins, Phil Spector, drummer Jim Keltner, and, in a 2009 revival, Sean Lennon. Wikipedia
Strange Concert Fact
As a peculiar side note to the concert festival, the rumor that Alice Cooper ate live chickens on stage during concerts also was birthed there. The reality is that somebody threw a chicken onto the stage and he through it back to the individual, who ate it. The rumor stuck with him throughout his career and he became somewhat of a Rock legend in creating an image of Alice Cooper as an insane man. Ozzy Ozborne followed Cooper as Rock’s crazy concert man.