60 Years of Unforgettable Music
Designed by Mark Kelsall; 6702 cues with FireOne firing.
This final competing display in the 36th edition of the Montreal International Fireworks Competition was both highly anticipated and blessed with the best summer evening of the competition so far. Pleasantly warm temperatures and ideal wind speeds and direction were the backdrop for this display which was touted to be the largest of the competition this year, possibly the largest in some years.
The soundtrack promised a selection of popular and well-known music spanning the decades from the 1960s up until the 2010s, though with no overall thematic connection between the tracks. After the usual countdown, we were given a presentation by a narrator introducing the company and the theme of the display. Unusually, this was done entirely in English, both at the start and the narrations that punctuated the transitions between the decades in the theme. I always find displays that start with black sky while there’s an initial narration engender a feeling of anticlimax – anyone who has been at La Ronde before should understand just how much anticipation Michel Laroix’s inimitable countdown from 10 is, so it’s a brave move to not start with something firing.
Once the display got going, it was immediately evident how many bright and colourful products were setup on ramp 3, but in terms of one-shots as well as in “slice” and other fast-firing cakes. Note-synchronized one-shot sequences ran back and forth across ramp 3 in an impressive way. This type of firing was used throughout most of the show – fast sequences of comets/one-shots and fan cakes, often with brilliant products, particularly the multi-colour changing mines with dazzling stars. These were augmented by short duration gerbs on ramp 5 as well as horizontal firing sequences of gerbs across ramp 3 and the use of flash pots on both ramps 3 and 5. Some excellent “laser” comet one-shots (where bright stars suddenly extinguish, given the effect of a laser beam) were also used. The main problem I found, however, was that these low-level sequences, as impressive as they appeared, where rarely supported by anything other than 3-5 relatively small calibre shells above. For most of the 32 minutes of the display, it was largely a low-level one-shot-and-slice-cake display. We did get some special effects in the form of sequenced star shots spelling out 60, 70, 80, 90, 00, and 10 for the decades of the theme as well as letter racks spelling out NOW during the Faded segment as well as hearts during Total Eclipse of the Heart.
Most of the show was focussed on the low-level sequence but we did have a finale-like sequence during Coldplay’s Fix You, which I enjoyed as it broke the monotony of the firing patterns that had been used so far. Then the announcer stated we had reached the final track with Andrea Bocelli’s Time To Say Goodbye – even though the published soundtrack indicated more music to follow. It was, indeed, an intense faux-finale, with sky filling thunderous volleys of gold kamuros. This was followed by a serene segment for God Save the Queen, with the only nautical products of the entire display consisting of some flares on the lake. Then a mix of some James Bond music and a transition into Paul McCartney’s Live and Let Die, which presented a similar style of finale to the Bocelli segment, but with crackling gold comets instead of kamuros and augmented by fan cakes of salutes below and some thunderous ground salutes suspended above the water on ramp 3.
The audience clearly loved this display and had cheered along at various points throughout and after the two finales. Unfortunately, I did not share their enthusiasm as I felt the display had been unbalanced throughout with very little interplay between the levels, repetition of firing patterns with weak shell support above (and repetition of the types of shells used). Synchronization was consistent throughout but I found that, for my taste, the synchronization point chosen did not match where I feel it should be. I had high hopes for the Darude Sandstorm segment (after having particularly enjoyed this as the finale of the 2003 display be Atlas, but the version we saw was almost devoid of shells and left me unsatisfied. I didn’t understand the way the faux and real finales were sequenced – I would have reversed their order and I found them powerful but this just enhanced the feeling, for me, that the display itself was unbalanced. Technically, the display went well with a few transposition errors here and there with slice cakes and one fireball, but given the number of cues, this is to be expected. Based on the audience reaction, this will do well, but was not to my taste at all unfortunately.
