What the critics have to say about Crystal Ship…

“Crystal Ship has been doing such good business at the Great Gildersleeves in N.Y. with its ‘Renaissance of the Doors’ program that the club sold advance tickets, instituted 8 p.m. and midnight concert-style showtimes, and cleared the house between shows.  This was the first time the room has operated this way for an unrecorded band.  Crystal Ship is the room’s biggest draw.”
– Performance Magazine

“…longtime Doors associate Danny Sugerman had flown in from L.A. to catch Crystal Ship—a New Jersey band specializing in note-for-note renditions of old Doors songs—because they represent the latest indication of what he sees as an impending Doors revival.”
– Rolling Stone

“…’The Doors catalog represents significant sales for us”, admits Dave Cline, Elektra/Asylum’s national director of sales and advertising.  ‘It sells at least the equivalent of a gold album every year’.  There’s a band working steady along the East Coast called Crystal Ship [taken from a Doors’ song] that plays nothing except the group’s repertoire.”
– Billboard

“…Rarely in the nine years or so of the Capitol Theatre’s existence as a premier rock venue, has a group without a recording contract played here.  Crystal Ship’s appearance marks one of those infrequent instances.  The rock quintet is exceptional in a number of different ways.  Earlier in the year, Crystal Ship rented the Capitol Theatre and performed to over 2,600 enthusiastic fans – a feat that few, if any, other club bands could equal.”
– The Capitol Theatre Program

“It’s all very professional and definitely intense, as demonstrated by calls and screams for encores after almost three hours…”
– Newark Star Ledger

“Ever been spooked?  Ever think you saw or heard a ghost?  It happened to me this week while walking upstairs to the band’s second floor practice room in a Passaic loft.  I heard Jim Morrison’s voice and the rest of the Doors playing “Roadhouse Blues’.  I wondered why the band was listening to records and not practicing.  Funny thing was, that was not record.  That was Crystal Ship playing…” 
–  The News 

Reprint from The Aquarian, October 10-17, 1979:
Bea Flatte – Crystal Ship Sails At Capitol Theatre

The event marked something of a landmark in Jersey music.  It was the very first time that a local act rented a facility the size of the Capitol and managed to pull off a more than successful evening with a minimum of advertising.

Backstage, lead vocalist Joe Tag wiped his sweaty brow and immediately went to change.  “Now that that’s over,” the tired but happy Tag said, “where’s that beer?”

The backstage party had all the trappings of a real opening-night bash.  Spirits were high and the band was considerably pleased that its music has been turning on a whole new generation to the Doors.  Crystal Ship seems to have the proper attitude, management and talent to go far beyond the powers of mortal men.  Look, up in the sky!  It’s a Crystal Ship Frisbee!  (They threw dozens of them out to the adoring crowd.)  You’ve got to give them credit.