Pyro Rock-n-roll
Designed by Michele Parente, PyroDigiT firing with 420 modules / ~5000 cues
The debutante Italian team were fortunate enough to have perfect weather throughout their time in Montreal, both for the setup and on the night of the display itself. A warm summer evening with moderate breezes presented ideal conditions, though the winds were a little bit in the general direction of the audience, they did not cause any undue problems.
Competing in Montreal for the first time is always a daunting task. The firing site is large and complex and time can be lost to trying to make too elaborate display. During the interview, we had been informed that all five firing ramps would be used, so I was a bit surprised to see that no pontoons (ramp 5) were set up when I arrived on Saturday evening. I wondered if the team had been over ambitious and had run out of time, particular as there were pyrotechnicians still visible on ramp 3 as late as 8:45pm – never usually a good sign. I asked some of the organizers about this and they assured me that everything had been completed by mid-afternoon so I half expected ramp 5 to be towed into place at the last minute, though this never happened.
The display itself began rather modestly and I did wonder if this would be indicative of the overall display. Often times, we observe the opposite. A display will begin in grand style but, after 10 minutes or so, runs out of oomph and ends in an anti-climax. I hoped that we would see the opposite case. Synchronization was extremely good with tight use of one-shots, though, after a few songs, it became apparent that the firing patterns used would be repeated throughout the display. Many effects were repeated over and over, as well, which was a shame as individually, they were well done.
There were some tense moments when, at least three times, we had black sky for more than 5 seconds during a track, with the longest being around 18 seconds. I then wondered if these empty sections had been originally designed for the missing ramp 5. I started to become encouraged during the Stairway to Heaven segment. This began quietly, but built to an excellent mini-finale, leaving me to hope that this was a promise of things to come! This segment was one of the few that used more than about 40 seconds of a song and was really well done. The soundtrack, in general, was very well put together with absolutely superb audio editing!
Quality of material used was pretty good in general, with some nice traditional Italian multi-break shells, though I thought there would have been more of these. Some very nice multi-colour changing shells as well, but not quite as many “effects” shells as I thought – though the ones we saw were good. The finale built to a good climax, but the final part was disappointingly short as it didn’t feel as long as the mini-finale in Stairway to Heaven had felt, though it was good and loud. A rock-n-roll theme needs a big display as this is the nature of the music – this is exactly what Pyrotecnico did for their Gold-jupiter winning display in 2008, overloading my camera at the end of their finale.
After the display, I discovered the ramp 5 material had been placed on ramp 3. I think this was unfortunate, as some of the one-shots were of fairly small calibre and would have looked better closer to the audience. The “360” that had been talked about during the interview was not present and I didn’t see anything on ramp 4. To be honest, I think many of the one-shots would have been just as effective had they been fired from candles and I would have liked to see some faster effects that I know the PyrodigiT firing system is capable of. I was reminded of Italian compatriot Morsani’s first participation in Montreal – a solid show but not quite at the podium level – remembering that when Morsani returned for their second appearance in Montreal, they deservedly won the Gold Jupiter.