Legends
Designed by Cliff Hooge, Soundtrack by Cliff Hooge; FireTek firing with ~4000 cues.
A perfect summer evening was the backdrop to the debut display by the Belgian company HC Pyrotechnics. It appeared that there might not be enough wind, but, in the end, there was just enough and it was all in the right direction to move the smoke away from the audience.
After a false start caused by the sound controller at La Ronde (more on this later), the display got off to a good start to music by Nirvana. Good use was made of the floating pontoons, though it appeared technical problems caused the left most one to stop firing, fortunately this didn’t really detract from the design of the display at all. It quickly became apparent the high quality of the fireworks being employed in the display, with vivid colours, interesting effects and plenty of studatas. Some of the multi-colour changing pistil shells from Hamex were just stunning – I counted five or six colour changes – this is Japanese-level quality. The pyrotechnic design was well done, with perfect synchronization throughout and good use made of the width and height of the display.
Cliff had noted during the interview that this was really his first time doing a soundtrack with seamless edits between pieces of music, rather than pauses. It was executed really well and, even though the audio was seamless, there were appropriate pauses or rallentandos of the fireworks to give the appropriate breather between the different pieces of music. The theme itself, Legends, is not a complex one, but there was an excellent variation in rhythm and pace between the different pieces.
One of the highlights of the display was the firing of huge fireballs at the end of the “Great Balls of Fire” segment – the heat from which was felt very strongly by the audience. It’s rare that we see such large fireballs in Montreal and they were well done. This segment also included some very nice ghost-effect shells too. There were very serene segments, one outstanding one being “Imagine” where good use was made of kamuro horsetails in shells and bombette cakes together with some nautical flares. However, strobing horsetails were used in a few segments, leading to a bit of a feeling of repetition, though in one segment at least these had colour-changing effects.
The finale was powerful, building up in intensity until huge fans of crackling comets fired from ramps 3 and five as thunderous shells of the same burst above with volleys of massive salutes embedded as well. The decent-sized audience rose to their feet and gave the team a well-deserved standing ovation!
Overall, this was an excellent display that was well executed. Whilst there were a few small errors here and there, it was very well done with a very broad range of really high quality effects. There was a bit of repetition in places, but this didn’t detract from a good design with a nice balance of high energy and more serene pieces. The fireballs were certainly a stand-out that the audience really appreciated, as was the finale. Cliff said he set out to pick music such that everyone would recognize at least one piece and this was certainly the case, as witnessed by the audience reaction to each song used. This display is definitely a contender for a Jupiter, but there’s still three strong competitors remaining.
As mentioned at the start of this report, there was yet another technical issue with the sound control during the pre-show protocol. Everything was proceeding properly with the correct sequence of the usual atmospheric Vangelis pieces that really set the stage for the display. Usually, a couple of minutes before 10:00pm, Michel Lacroix introduces the company and talks about the display itself, then warns about smoke etc. and finally the countdown begins at 9:59:50. This time, the wrong recording was used and we heard Michel Lacroix giving the initial introduction. Then we heard the countdown overlay this and the music for the soundtrack start. One group of comets fired from the left-most ramp 5 position before the display was stopped, along with the music. After some time to resynchronize the timecode (there’s a couple of minutes required for this), the display commenced properly after the countdown without issue. I have never witnessed as many errors in this pre-display period as I have this year. Fortunately this week’s mistake didn’t detract from an otherwise excellent display. Let’s hope that the quality we have come to expect over the years is restored for the next display.