# lighters at concerts **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 27, 2001, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354 "2001-06-27T18:25:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dave\_wa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19adc/32.png) [@dave\_wa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dave_wa)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2001, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/1 "2001-06-27T18:25:05Z")
Does anybody know when the tradition of lifting your lighter at a concert came from? It usually happens during the slower songs or between the end of the set and the encore. I’m pretty young, so I don’t know how long it has been going on. The only theory I’ve ever heard is about lighting up your blunts during the slower songs. Any help would be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![red\_dragon60](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@red\_dragon60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/red_dragon60)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2001, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/2 "2001-06-27T18:29:51Z")
My WAG is that it’s like holding up candles, as a way of adding some sort of spiritual bent to it. Kinda like a cadnle-light vigil. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2001, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/3 "2001-06-27T18:36:09Z")
The first time I ever heard of it was during a Bob Dylan tour in the early-mid 70’s (kind of a comeback tour); the lighters would come out during “Like a Rolling Stone”. ---
**Author:** ![Sultan\_Kinkari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Sultan\_Kinkari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sultan_Kinkari)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2001, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/4 "2001-06-27T18:38:09Z")
When you are on acid and you wave your lighter from side to side you usually get “tracers”(these are like time-elapsed photographs of the stars or taillights of a car.) I assume that a rock star was high on LSD during a gig and told everyone to take out their lighters so he/she could have a lot of little tracers. Sounds like something Jimi would have initiated. I could be wrong. It’s funny because if you go to like an indoor Phish show, you look around the arena and you can see everyone lighting their bowls. It has the same effect as everyone holding their lighter up but it’s unintentional. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2001, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/5 "2001-06-27T22:56:37Z")
I thought it went all the way back to the Doors, and that people would hold their lighters up when requesting, or in gratitude for, _Light My Fire_. ---
**Author:** ![dave\_wa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19adc/32.png) [@dave\_wa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dave_wa)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2001, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/6 "2001-06-28T02:06:28Z")
The Jimi thing would fit with “Fire” and the Doors theory seems pretty good. Does anybody have an early Grateful Dead Dick’s Picks with a lighter show? Anybody remember from an early 70’s show? And the person that mentioned Dylan, was that the Rolling Thunder or a tour with the Band? Just interested. Thanks for the help so far. Any new theories? ---
**Author:** ![Sultan\_Kinkari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Sultan\_Kinkari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sultan_Kinkari)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2001, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/7 "2001-06-28T02:19:58Z")
Well, we know it has to be within the past twenty-one years, because disposable lighters were invented in 1970. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2001, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/8 "2001-06-28T15:59:22Z")
Just a WAG, but I’ve heard the lighter thing first appeared at a Led Zeppelin concert. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2001, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/9 "2001-06-28T16:27:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wishbone \* > \*\*Well, we know it has to be within the past twenty-one years, because disposable lighters were invented in 1970. 😉 > > \*\* 2001 - 1970 = 31. But you knew that. And for the Dylan tour, Rolling Thunder sounds right…I wasn’t there, though, so the details are fuzzy. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2001, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/10 "2001-06-28T16:27:54Z")
I think you’ve been sniffing too much lighter fluid, **wishbone**. 2001 - 1970 = 31 years Besides, non-disposable lighters have been around for much longer: [http://www.zippo.com/about/history/index.html](http://www.zippo.com/about/history/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Sultan\_Kinkari](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7bcc69/32.png) [@Sultan\_Kinkari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sultan_Kinkari)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2001, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/11 "2001-06-28T20:32:22Z")
When I was originally posting the thread I {b]really\*\* thought that it must have been after the advent of the disposable lighter, for about 4.20 seconds… I found an awesome site you might want to check out. [http://www.cmi.k12.il.us/Urbana/uhs/lemons/inventions.html](http://www.cmi.k12.il.us/Urbana/uhs/lemons/inventions.html) ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2001, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/12 "2001-06-28T20:50:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by red\_dragon60 \* > \*\*My WAG is that it’s like holding up candles, as a way of adding some sort of spiritual bent to it. Kinda like a cadnle-light vigil. \*\* I thought it might have been inspired by that old coke commercial with everyone standing around holding candles. Or was that inspired by the lighters… ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2001, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lighters-at-concerts/70354/13 "2001-06-28T21:12:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by wishbone \* > \*\*Well, we know it has to be within the past twenty-one years, because disposable lighters were invented in 1970. 😉 > > \*\* Who said they had to be disposable? People were not ashamed of smoking anything in those days, and they had the elegant accesories to prove it. Heck, I knew someone in college (around 1979), whose _grandmother_ had given him a lighter as a present.