Continued July-like weather prevailed for the Canadian team, with a few lingering cumulus cloud clusters, very warm late-evening temperatures repeated at 27-28 C, and borderline moderate-high humidity, making for more comfortable conditions for those seeking relief from the very high to extreme humidity levels experienced since July 20th. With an area of high pressure advancing from the northwest, this, consequently, put a close to the high heat and humidity advisory (unfortunately for me) that had been in place for about a half week’s time, formally establishing a prominent heat wave during this period. With a weak passing cold frontal wave over the course of the mid-afternoon hours, isolated pockets of showers developed, but, as expected, convection deteriorated completely beyond 8:00 p.m., and the air progressively had shown signs of stabilization even before that time. Wind speeds, as was the case for the United States, were gusty through the day but, as forecasted, had weakened to safer standards by evening, with occasional gusts reaching near 30 km/h and then quickly shifted to northwesterlies to North-northwesterlies (NNW).
While I thought this display was not sufficient enough to surpass both Italy and Australia, it is to my belief that it is, at this point in time, in contention for the bronze Jupiter. The theme was a complex one, being explained with narration at a few sections through the display when pivotal points occurred through the storyline (also causing the display to finish by 10:33-10:34, Molson time, or virtually 10:34, according to Fred). The nature of the theme also certainly created a very artistic design for this performance, which assisted, to some extent, in portraying its key attributes.
The general appearance of the display was good, as I thought the firing patterns from segment to segment were different in their own respective way, and the diversity of effects was high, as was the product quality, as also noted by Fred - in particular, I loved the double-ascension girandolas, and they took me by surprise when I suddenly saw them burst into stars upon completing their final ascension! Some of the effects were also intriguing and used where appropriate, most notably the horsetails, kamuros, shell of shells (I was not expecting these), and the farfalles. The low level effects were employed nicely as well, sometimes occupying all the available space, which was perhaps amplified by the breezy NNW winds. Other memorable effects include the fans of comets at low level that burst into an intricate set of colors, resembling a mixture of color on a paintaing board (around half way into the show, as well as just prior to the penultimate piece), and those nautical effects that moved erratically (I am not familiar with the name of this effect) on the lake surface were very captivating, around eight minutes into the show. I also found that the firing angles were equally interesting, especially with the cakes/z-cakes, crossed comets, mines (also the mines of screaming serpents were a good addition) and fireflies, providing the display an often wide look, although the width appeared, at times, disproportional to our right because of, again, the breezy winds. That said, the symmetry of the display from left to right (and vice versa) was good, and the balance was often well maintained from low to high level - the low-mid level fireworks were usually supportive to the high level shells, filling up the sky at all levels very well at multiple sections of the performance.
The display, for myself, was a success in its own right, but there are some negative factors that merit attention. While the overall conceptual design was good, I found that the theme was sometimes a little too complex to be effectively represented through the fireworks with a commanding appearance. Synchronization was also good but not always as distinctive as it could have been, and while there were some very interesting sequences, the note-tight synchronization was not too obvious. A few of the more successful and enjoyable pieces, in terms of sequencing, include the opening, as well as the segment that had started roughly 25 and a half minutes in.
As far as the structure of the display was concerned, every segment seemed to flow nicely from one section of the display to the other, but there were moments of redundancy in terms of certain effects, particularly with respect to some shells being relied on a little too excessively (such as the shells of white/beige at high level). The music selections were relevant, but I felt that there were a few segments that could have been a little better illustrated in accordance with the soundtrack - this is perhaps because, in part, the synchronization was not always so tight, and more activity could have been present. Although the fading period towards the conclusions of a few segments was a little too elongated (in terms of silence), the principal transitional points were elaborated nicely in this display (the narration helped with this, too), but given the theme’s characteristics, I did not feel the emotional delivery that I had previously envisioned, as compared to, say, what was witnessed with the dichotomy of Italy’s display. I was also awaiting some large calibre nautical shells, but these were not present. Finally, although it is true that the narration was necessary to convey such an intricate theme, I personally found that these pauses did take some of the enjoyability away from the display. As before, the finale was good, but I thought that the climactic point ended with insufficient intensity - it concluded, then, rather abruptly. That said, this final part of the show was nicely stretched (I timed it at roughly three minutes and twelve seconds). Some additional small observations include one or two brief periods of random silence, and a few shells had detonated early in between.
In spite of my criticisms, this was a good effort from team Canada, and, in my humble opinion, stands a fair chance for the bronze Jupiter at this point in time. With a good thematic framework, relevant soundtrack, good support at all levels of sky, and generally decent choreography, the performance receives mostly a good scoring distribution from me, although the aforementioned criticisms prevent me from placing the Canadian team beyond a bronze, given the level of complexity seen in both the Australian and Italian displays.
Let’s see what France, the final entrant, has to offer!
Trav.
