Hello, everyone,
As it first appeared, much of the larger crowd got the immediate impression that this performance was going to turn into a thunderstorm vs. fireworks showdown. Though we are now in the longest days of the year, this was quite a typical dramatic Summer evening after experiencing almost a full week of the season. Like last week, a vigorous pair of cold fronts was viciously coming through making way for the risk of severe thunderstorms in their wake. There were numerous watches and warnings being spawned throughout the day and in the early evening hours in Southern Ontario and Southern Quebec, but thankfully, we were quite fortunate to escape the clutches of the storm activity that was present (forming since 8:00 p.m quite distinctively) as it passed off further to the North and East, only leaving us with partly cloudy skies and some distant bright flashes of lightning that could be seen through the smoke build up in the first parts of the display. Without further delay, the show was set start at about 10:05 with the "long time no see" English firm ready to show off their promising performance: "Day and Night".
The display started extravagantly with quite a few mines of red and overhead shells at mid levels, and this led to an intensified introduction with massive shells seen at high level creating deafening blasts from each of them. The show had numerous effects associated with it and involved a good range. We were treated with many massive shells at high level throughout the show as well as some kamuros, weeping willows and a lot of gold dust, which often times made an appearance in the center of those large shells at the top creating the usual heavy rain kind of noise. In addition, there were many shells of colorful stars that burst elegantly while being later accompanied by other shells that took the shape of bows of red; I was actually enamored by the bow shells because they were often assisted by other shells to the left and right. In one segment near midway (the one that seemed like a fully-fledged finale), huge shells of gold sparkles were integrated with shell of shells that gave off a dazzling array of colors, most notably red, green and white. Other effects included bright shells of bright orange ball stars, crackling mines, screaming serpents, double rings, go-getters, many blue and crimson red mines and mines that gave way to a multitude of swirls. Indirectly, the lightning often brightly filled in the void between the closing of each part at the beginning of the display.
Finally, the ring was fantastic and was used very strategically; most memorable effects were the illuminated sunshine icon, the blue moon, the orange sparkling circle (probably depicting sunset) and the flares that could be seen coming from it in assisting the shells that were side by side of the structure.
The low level effects were also quite stunning. The gradual ascending gold glitter fountains across the ground were simply amazing and many spectators were quite fond of the horizontally spinning structures. Before the fountains began to rise, there was a little ironic simulation of a lightning storm, which I enjoyed fully.
Synchronization was simply amazing and the fireworks were admirably on cue, too; this was particularly noticeable in the segment involving the soundtrack "Fire" from the Pointer Sisters. Similarly during the soundtrack of "Blue Moon", a simulation of a "blue moon" was lit up in the ring while later being assisted by multiple blue shells. The music coordination was superb and was fitting with much of the fireworks throughout the display. The choice of music was gallantly chosen because it both involved an enjoyable variety of music and it surely covered what much of the theme was about, but what was most stunning is that much of the soundtrack and effects were focused on the sun and moon, particularly with respect to the sun’s track in the sky during the diurnal part of the day (morning until evening) until the moon was ready to rise. In essence, the impression that I got was that we were taken on a ride with the sun rising and setting, only waiting for the moonlight to emerge brilliantly in the lower sky. This meant that the use of the ring, for example, was certainly an advantageous addition to this kind of display in tracking this cosmic or planetary approach.
The colors were simply dazzling, although I found some slight repetition in firing scheme in some places while the color selection was not in a huge variety, especially when compared to the amount of golds and deep blues seen in the display. Of course, the colors were still spectacular and still typically showed day and night ideally.
The finale was strong, had excellent longevity and was anxiously awaited, courtesy of the earlier part, as mentioned, that felt like a conventional ending. This concluding segment was broken up into a few parts, often fooling the audience (including yours truly) in thinking that it would reach its climactic point. However, personally I found the finale perhaps a little too broken up and probably would have felt a little more vehement if the entire part was put into one sole entity, but that's not to say that it wasn't intense!
Trav's personal rankings:
-Synchronization: 9.8/10-Simply put that there was excellent and enjoyable synchro all the way through with very minimal flaws.
-Colors: 9/10-Though not a huge spectrum of colors, especially when compared to Spain, they certainly had a good variety. Some colors were a little repetitive and perhaps too concentrated, particularly the use of the gold.
-Creativity/Originality/Concept: 9/10-The theme was very unique and well thought out, thus much of display was very creative, especially with the
use of the ring, even though the ring itself was not totally original in my mind.
-Choice of music: 9.4/10-The music was very enjoyable and had a strong connection with the theme. The crowd was pleased with most of the choices, too.
-Finale/General appreciation-9.3/10-While the finale could have been better under some standards, it was still very pleasing and intensified. At the end of the display, there was nothing but loud roars of approval from the larger amount of spectators.
-Overall: 9.3/10
^^^
Again, I'll probably have to adjust scores later on to accurately compare the participants, but this should still give an idea of where I stand with each display in terms of rank. *These are also my personal rankings based on my viewpoints via De Lorimier and Notre-Dame streets.
This was an incredible performance from the English team and I personally thought that the way the display revolved around the main theme was an absolute success. The fireworks easily matched and the colors were selected very nicely to represent the separate parts of day and night respectively. While the use of the ring was a good addition to the display, I didn't think it was actually original since the idea was used before by Portugal a few times in the past. More importantly, however, the use of the ring itself was totally unique and was a perfect and clever integration to represent that gorgeous illuminated sun pattern and that neat blue moon. However, it was a shame that the smoke sort of drowned some of the fireworks coming from ring at times.
The colors were definitely well chosen to represent each part of the show and, like Spain, contrasted easily with other colors most of the time, particularly in some of the "night time" pieces. However, I sometimes felt that some of colors were a little too redundant for my tastes, particularly the gold. Relating to this, I found the show well constructed and very organized where dedicating part of it as daylight and the other as night; this perhaps followed better with a general understanding theme itself as well. I also noticed that the display was quite ubiquitous and extended at mid levels from left to right of the firing site for a good portion of the time, and from my viewpoint, it seemed like there was a loss in symmetry at a couple of points in balancing from left and right, although the gap was usually filled in quickly afterwards (this is a minor criticism). The display itself was quite fast-paced all the way through and the finale was a real teaser with the multiple parts that made it up. With respect to pace, I noticed that in between the conclusion of multiple soundtracks, the fireworks would resume abruptly after the music came to a climax. In terms of effects, they were generally in good variety, but I'm quite surprised that no girandolas, particularly the gold glittering types, were not used as part of the display in any of the night time pieces, which I thought would have fitted in perfectly.
Despite the pros and cons, I personally would set aside the vivid smoke accumulations since it did not block out most of the display. The ending was somewhat marred by smoke due to the natural rapid firing pace frequency, which usually leads to vast accumulations of smoke. Nevertheless, the smoke did not block out the entire ending and did not phase out the ground level effects all that much in most of the show; everything could still be seen with reasonable visibility. While I believe that this performance is in winning standards, we still have yet to witness 6 other highly anticipated displays, as Fred clearly stated.
However, with the strong theme connection, wonderful choreography, enjoyable enforcing music and excellent crescendo between slow to growing rapid transitions; the English team currently has a good chance of having a place on that podium.
I'm grateful that the thunderstorm did not wreak havoc on this wonderful display, but it's a lucky thing that the show did not delay too long or else the next impending heavy thunderstorm would have certainly caused trouble.
The competition is already heating up quite a bit!
Trav.
