Hey guys!!

I just got back from what I call an excellent display! It was truly nice to watch this type of show, though it wasn't as original as I had hoped, but definitely extremely traditional and somewhat creative, especially with the use of that small wheel in the middle.

This display was also quite LOUD and thumping and so much action, as well.

Synchronization was good for the most part except for a couple of small pieces where some candles were firing at the left as the music stopped.

All in all, I think this was a great effort from this team, but the narration sort of bothered me, especially with that, once again, anti-climatic opening after an enthusiastic countdown. This year is well known for its slow starts.

The display was lengthy, too! According to my time and the Molson time, it was about 10:35 when it was done! I suspect that this was because of narration.

Finally, the ending was once again sort of disappointing, but at least it had some good intensity along with some small faux finales in between the show. This show was another type that went from extreme serene moments to sudden change to quick paced excitement!

I'll have a full review tomorrow. In the meantime, post your reviews here! I look foward to them.

In any case, have a pleasant evening and sleep well!

Best regards,

Trav.

BEM's show was a good one, for the pleasure of people who have reached La Ronde tonight, no without any problems. Fortunately, I always use the subway system for going to and coming from Parc Jean-Drapeau. But many people were jammed in the traffic and the access to the island by Jacques-Cartier bridge has apparently been closed around the dinner time.

Following the ritual, I went near the firing ramps before the show. The setup was in the average, with a set piece on the fourth ramp, that is, the Irdieden structure.

The thematic of the show was interesting and original, since I think it was the first display about our own history. The title was very appropriate: "Au pied du courant" is a historic place located just in front of La Ronde, on the other side of the river. The narrative helped to create a link between the 11 segments of this show. But, as it is often the case, this component was not well integrated to the show: an anti-climactic start with a 70-second narrative segment, many long narrative segments throughout the show, and no firework with the narrative. This is certainly the reason why the entire show was a 35-minute one. To conclude about the thematic, the link between the soundtrack and the (hi)story was not always obvious, especially with Mozart, Chopin and Chabrier (Spanish).

The Patriots' hanging has been appropriately illustrated with small crosses, during a serene moment. Just after, the Irdieden structure came into life. I believe that the effect was the same than those realized by Ampleman in the 2004 opening show. According to the press release, several months of design had been requisite to develop this improved version of the Irdieden structure. If this is true, I am not sure that it was a very good investment...

Synchronization was correct throughout the show, with some very good moment. In the sixth part, the note-synchronized fireworks to Mozart's concerto were obvious. However, it happened a couple of times (for instance, at the end of the fourth part) that the fireworks stopped before the music, a problem which had occured in the BEM's performance in 2000.

The quality of the material used was very good. I noted a lot of changing-colour pieces in many segments. The colour of some pieces changed twice. So the richness of colour was high. Different nautical pieces has been launched on the lake, including fountains and giant mines. The size of the latter was exceptional and they exploded very close to the audience!

A good moment was the 7th part about the war. Throughout this segment, several angled mines exploded near the ground. Red mines exploded from the left side to the right, and blue mines exploded from the right side to the left, illustrating the war between Britain and French. The British victory became obvious as this segment progressed, since the red mines moved toward the right side and the blue mines were less and less numerous.

I suspect that some technical problems occured. Many times, we have seen a lot of pieces launched and exploded unappropriately on the right side of the firing ramps. Later, many patterns has been asymetrical with missing pieces on the right side.

In conclusion, it was a very good display. People who had chosen to stay at home missed an interesting show tonight. However, I would be very surprised to see BEM on the podium. The main reason is the lack of originality about the overall design. The narrative, what I suspect to be technical problems, and the choice of some musical segments also explain my opinion.

The jury will made his finale decision next Wednesday, right after the American show. I am very confident that people from Sweden and Argentina should be ready for a trip to Montreal next week.

Fred

My report is up now. Whilst it was an enjoyable display, it certainly didn't live up to the hype of the most original display this year / ever. There were a few technical problems (including an explosion which knocked over a rack at the right hand side of ramp 3) and some cakes firing in the wrong places. The Irdieden, unfortunately, was just too small and far away from the audience to be effective - as was the case when was used by both Hop Kee in 2003 and Ampleman in 2004.

I found the synchronization to be OK - there were very few places where it was really evident (such as the note-sequenced comet shots in the Mozart concerto section). Most of the rest of the time, the sequences were nothing out of the ordinary, except for the section where we had the war between the red and blue mines which I thought was very well done. I also found there were a couple of places where I wrote in my notes "too loud for the music" when bombettes and other loud cake-effects were drowning out the music.

Choice of shells was OK in parts, but too many red peonies for my tastes and there were places where there was an imbalance between dimmer charcoal-effect shells and brighter star shells. Also, some of the brocade shells for some reason were particularly dim. I did, however, think the nautical pieces used were excellent, especially the huge nautical mines which exploded dramatically close to the audience.

As for the narration, once again, too long at the beginning creating an anti-climax due to the lack of any fireworks for the 1st 70 seconds or so. I'm also not too clear how the finale music fitted into the theme ... though it could be a predication that Spanish will become North America's lingua franca in the not too distant future.

All in all, it was an enjoyable display but the level is very high this year and I don't think it was creative enough to permit BEM to be on the winner's podium.

Paul.

For the first time a Canadian display without rain! Last night was slightly cooler, but very comfortable. Many noticed some dark clouds, but nothing happened. I guess that's not a surprise since it was a Canadian display!

First off, I can finally tell you that that was certainly not the most amazing display in the history of this competition. I'm not surprised 'cause the interview was literally a joke! Let me first point out some of the interesting aspects of the display. The display had many huge shells and those are always welcome by me. Some interesting effects, especially in the lower level. There was one segment where in the end they launched a "straight hair" very high in the sky. It was very pretty, good in length and dramatic! The whole show lasted for 35min, thanks to the narration. I think that was pretty much it for the positive aspects, for me.

In this paragraph, I will discuss about my *mixed* reaction to certain aspects. The theme of this show was very much concentrating on the history of Quebec, when this is a "Canadian firm". Maybe we should have a Quebecois firm, like 2003's Hong Kong? In that case, I would welcome even more this theme. However this isn't really a criticism, just a suggesting, maybe. As for the narration, it was acceptable in lenght, in my opinion (maybe a bit longer than Sweden's). It was of course an important narration (unlike Australia's) for the show. Quite frankly, I really enjoyed listening to it. Quebec's history is always fascinating to me. It refreshed my mind.

But it's funny 'cause the soundtrack contains some non-Quebecois songs. Why these silly mistakes? This bring me up to talk about the synchronization, which I thought was not very good but acceptable. I say this because a lot of times, it was synchronizing by shooting shells one after another. And that's easy to do.

I thought the segments, some times, ressembled to one another. Overall, it was an OK display because there wasn't much of originality and creativity.

As for the finale, before I talk about the finale, I have to say, the finale segment was very long and somewhat boring. The finale was as usual not impressive. It ressembled a lot like the other finales. The finales have become a joke this year. I'm not even going to rate them anymore. But let me say, a big thank you to France! Whatever happened to those good old finale...

My ratings, so far:

1. Sweden
2. France
3. Portugal
4. Spain
5. Argentina
6. Canada
7. Australia
8. Czech Republic

Generally based on how I felt and what I liked best.

Next stop, the United States. Always a great pleasure to watch an American show and to visit their country!

Definitely not a contender.

The narration was too long, even boring at times and was braking up the rythm of the display. I found it anti-climactic to hear Michel Lacroix count down "3...2...1..." and then no shells for the first 70 seconds of the show. This has been said before, but it takes a lot of talent to make narration work in a display and, unfortunately, it didn't work last night. My feeling is that , if you have to explain it, then you haven't done a good job designing it in the first place. The only time I saw narration add something to a display was when Alberto Navarro did "the empire of fire" for Sunny in 1998. But then again the narrative segments for that show never exceeded 10 seconds or so. Also, it made me cringe at times to hear one of the best voices in Quebec ( Albert Millaire) read a text that was written by someone with average writing talent.

I caught myself looking at my watch many times during the display and this is definitively not a good thing...At some points, I felt like I was being "educated", instead of being entertained. I found the "cemetary" scene particularely disturbing and wondered if this was really a good idea.

As for the Irdieden, well, what can I say that hasn't been said before? It's been done to death in Montreal and it's time designers come up with a new gimmick instead of copying each other and calling it "The segment that will win us Gold..." And the claim that it took them two months of work to set it up? Why two months? You order it, it gets delivered, you install it and fire it, that's it!

The firing of the shells used the same pattern for the entire display, pos 1, pos 2, pos 3, pos 4, pos 5, and then back to pos 1 to do it all over again. Altough a shell chase scene is interesting at times, doing it for an entire display gets boring.

The shells used were pretty, but almost all scenes would use only one type and color of shell, repeated accross all calibers for the following 30 seconds or so.

Lastly, I found the finale to be much too short. If I remember correctly, it barely lasted for 20 seconds and the intensity of it was, at best, average.

So, overall, a "correct" display by an average designer. I think it will finish near the bottom of the ranking, along with Australia.

Hello, guys!

First off, I'm terribly sorry for the late reply, once again. I was in Morrisburg, Ontario pretty much all day, so therefore, once again, a late review. Sorry!

Well, well! A pretty decent effort from this highly optimistic designer, though, as I mentioned before, not as original as was planned and was highly emphasized! To be honest, most of this display wasn't anything of the ordinary and nothing to be considered ranked as the "most original attempt of the year and the history of the competition." But, we were treated with what I call one of the most exciting displays so far, though, once again, a poor ending and what felt like endless narration, especially at the beginning. More on this later.

The weather was variable last night. Some creepy looking clouds that are usually normal for Canadian displays, as Enkil pointed out, were the case at about 8:30 and continued looking threatening for almost an hour. Thankfully enough, these clouds were breaking up too quickly to produce anything and I did notice that the cloud decks were not thick enough to be considerable. From a distance, yes, it did look threatening, but it could also be said that clouds tend to look darker at sunset, but it still was a concern to many people, regardless. The temperature stayed at about 22-23 Celsius with more than enough sufficient winds mainly coming from the North. Despite that, a perfect summer evening with some clouds and somewhat on the cool side treated us to a highly anticipated display, not to mention an overconfident display and lengthy display! Also, this was probably one of the biggest, if not, the biggest, crowds so far this year. This was actually probably the loudest display so far, too!

To start off, in general, this display wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but still did show some creativity in some segments, particularly the use of nautical shells, as well as some fountains. As mentioned before by Paul and Fred, this was, indeed, one of the most well sequenced shows! I did notice many appropriate effects that helped execute this! This show, however, was, in my opinion, more traditional than original! I actually found the show to be quite patriotic in some parts, especially with the use of the Canadian traditional colors. The show was also sort of complex in some perspectives in which I saw what trying to be done. Some parts, it was clear, others, not as effective as I had hoped. The wheel in the middle was somewhat a pretty good approach, especially with the candles and mines that followed. The golden weeping willows were also something to be admired, particuarly with the soundtrack in that segment.

Once again, another anti-climatic display and I can say that only about 2 displays started off with a big bang this year, while others started slow either because of extreme narration or very low effects that can only be seen at La Ronde. This display, however was WAY too long with narration in between segments, especially at the beginning. My patience was at end for almost a minute and half at the beginning. It's always better when it starts on time especially considering that you have to wait so long before the display starts. It was a bad habit this year. However, this display quickly, at least, made up for those pauses with some powerful and massive shell of blue stars along with many subsequent effects. The first segment started slow but really blasted off with many middle level along with some lower candles. The song seemed ideal for it, too.

I must comment on the sequencing of this show. Probably one of the best attempts in this area, especially the way it was connected with the transitions of different colors. Also, the timing of the silver glitters in the low levels from left to right and right to left was really dazzling! This also held true for many parts of the display in mainly the middle levels of the sky. The silver kamuros were well defined as well as the higher level ones. These were also well sequenced to, but the way it was done at different angles sort of gave off a nice impression, the way I saw it! The red shells were also fantastic with sequence. This also gave way to many changes and sort of gave off that "dancing" feeling! Switching from red to blue, then to white and green followed by some orange mixtures allowed many parts to be very dynamic and most delightful, especially it's balance with the music. The shell of swirls and the golden candles were highly apparent in that soundtrack with the piano. Each note was very distinctive. The very high level shells were really massive, especially those huge white with orange and green starts in the middle! These were always welcome to close most of the segments. A lot of cheers from the crowd when these were present, including me!

There was quite an extensive use of many products that I thought were ideal for this type of show and the way it represented the theme, especially taking into serious consideration that this display was highly sequenced and ranging from extreme moments from serene to rapid excitement. I did notice many loud cracklers widely spreaded throughout the show. This was welcome!

There was a segment that had highly paced loud salutes and shells! This was great after all those shells that rocked the sky with color! Also, as I said, there were super loud shells way at the top that sometimes bursted into many aqua stars at even higher levels way over our heads. This was done with some more green shells that burted into more stars of the same. This then was followed by more and more shells that started to seem out of control! The pace even increased more with more shell of stars with some massive volleys of cracklers and some salutes from the top of the bright silver mines at the bottom. This segment, I believe was done with the fidle in the soundrack. It was also a very dynamic moment since it started off with many flashes at the bottom with some distinctive red flares that suddenly gave way to lower mines that burst into blue stars!

There were also many shell of swirls with were ideal, as I said, especially since there was many great soundtracks that welcomed them. I did notice many colorful mines that were also great for th music and for sequencing, not to mention the tight candles. There many gold glittering weeping willows and coconut trees which were predominantly to the left and right as the wheel was on the middle. This was very well done. The silver kamuros at the middle levels also gave a wide variety of contrast to the lower mines.

I was delighted to see girandolas of bright glitters followed by double ascension girandolas with the same effect properties. This effect was quite abundant this year, but it always fits in when connecting with "serene" moments, such as how it was presented here. It's always nice to hear the cheers from the audience when these are present.

The nautical effects were quite apparent in this display. I, too, noticed the huge nautical shells way at the bottom and this seemed to be done in nice sequences, too. There were also some nice glittering fountains near the lake, which made a dazzling effect, I assume.

Synchronization was interesting, but not perfect. I did notice some off spots, like the extra firing of some left (my left) candles. There were some extra shells that were fired in some areas when the music stopped, too, I think. Once again, the criteria was apparent with sequencing, so this made things very entertaining and enjoyable. Overall, still acceptable.

The various use of color was excellent, but some more purple shells and some lower blue stars would have also been ideal in some areas, in my opinion. The variety of color was great, though, especially with the some of the transitions in the faux finale and with the bursts of stars from the massive shells. Also, some very nice traditional colors, like the red and white mixtures coming from either the silver kamuros or the red/white shell mixtures.

The choice of music was mediocre, in my opinion. I agree with Paul about the last soundtrack for the ending. I honestly didn't see the relevance in relation to the main theme. I also felt this way with other songs that really didn't seem right to me. Narration was simply terrible. As anonymous said, I felt that we were being more lectured than entertained and treated to parts that could have been taken advantage of. This act simply did not work with a show like this or any other show, except for the way it interacted with Sweden's display. In my opinion, overall, narration rarely ever works well with a display so I honestly don't know why they even bother. This year also was disappointing after the anticipated countdown and it really isn't fair if nothing is in the air for such a long time. This was apparent this year and it always gives a bad impression. It always works best when a display starts on time. The narration was simply too long and being someone who is impatient, it wasn't funny. But, as I said, at least the show made up for these pauses with some exciting moments.

Travis' personal rankings and display criteria rankings:

-Synchronization: 7.5/10-Mainly because of some parts that were awkward, but still acceptable, so a decent score from me.
-Color: 9/10-Some more colors would have been great, like the purple color, but an overall excellent selection.
-Creativity/Originality/Concept: 7/10-Not as much as I had hoped, but very creative with sequencing. This was a rather more traditional show than an original one.
-Choice of music: 7.5/10-An interesting choice, but no direct link with some choices, particularly the last one for the ending. Some others were not clear to me. However, the soundtrack worked well with the quick transition of serene to exciting moments.
-Finale/Overall Appreciation: 6.7/10-Not the best lasting appeal and a rather weak finale. The overall appreciation wasn't that much impressive since narration took a way a lot of enthusiasm. Once again, quite rare this year with good finales.
-Overall: 8/10

My personal choices for the winners:

1-Sweden
2-France
3-Argentina
4-Canada
5-Spain
6-Portugal
7-Czech Republic
8-Australia


My jury predictions:

1-Sweden/Argentina
2-either of the above
3-France, Spain or even Portugal

My personal choice in terms of overall excitement excluding finales:

1-France
2-Sweden
3-Canada
4-Czech Republic
5-Argentina
6-Portugal
7-Spain
8-Australia


My personal choice for finales so far:


1-France
2-Sweden
3-Spain
4-Portugal
5-Canada
6-Cezch Republic
7-Argentina
8-Australia


In conclusion, an overall average display, though I believe the designer was rather cocky about his claims. This was a more traditional approach rather than an extreme original one that was promised. I felt that there were other concepts that could have been taken advantage of. However, this was one of the most intense and exciting displays, so this was rather my type of show despite the pauses of narration. Excellent colors and nice sequencing with transitions and glitters, which was probably one of the best. Also, this display had a deep turing point between an extreme quiet moment to a sudden rapid pace! I always love this. My main criticisms are the narration pauses which always give you that impression, especially with a silent opening. This is most frustrating especially to me. Also, I found that the theme wasn't totally "fresh." It also was sort of vague for an attempt like this. Despite this, I believe that the show was creative in some aspects, but was overly ranked by the designer. The competition is at a very high standard since France presented and claims that were made for this display did not provide the evidence needed to back it up. Even the finale, once again, was very disappointing, especially since the display went up to 10:35. Regardless, at least it was exciting and to my tastes. Sadly enough, I do not think this display will make it on the podium this year, as much as I would like it to. My thoughts are still with Sweden for first place.

Thank you for all your remarks! Pierre, I still look foward to yours!

Regards,

Trav.

Bonjour tout le monde

Les commentaires se rejoignent à plusieurs points de vue.
La firme BEM a offert une bonne performance avec des passages fort bien réussis 'En somme un spectacle un peu en dent de scie d'un tableau à l'autre et ce à tous les points de vue en regards des critères pour juger les feux.
Je suis toujours aussi agacé par les longues narrations qui à mon avis brisent le rytme de la mise en scène. Toutefois il était nécessaire avec le concept historique retenu de situer le spectateur mais ceci aurait pu être fait avec un minimum de mots. Les gens auraient été capables de faire les liens.
Idéalement je préfère que les enchainements soient réalisés avec la musique et les pièces pyotechniques .
Je me demandais bien comment BEM allait présenter l'aspect historique du Pied du Courant dans l'histoire du Québec. J'ai été satisfait à ce niveau .
Le choix musical aurait pu être meilleur . Avec mozart et en plus Chabrier et son Espana je suivais difficilement l'intégration de la musique au concept retenu. Pourtant il y avait de la musique à cette époque là et le Québec a produit de nombreux auteurs qui auraient très bien servis le développement du concept et lui donner un caractère historique encore plus crédible. Il aurait donc fallu faire un peu de recherche car le sujet retenu par BEM était fort original et plein de promesses.
On a présenté deux créations québécoises de leclerc et Vigneault.J'aurais préféré qu'on nous serve les versions originales chantées par les auteurs.

Un petit mot pour Enkil. Oui la firme BEM représente le Canada mais elle est étable au Québec à Coteau du lac non loin de la 20.

Bem avait choisi de très belles pièces pour illustrer dont plusieurs très puissantes. Ils ont généralement assez bien utilisé les possibilités des rampes de mise à feu. Comme j'avais ressenti avec la firme Australienne en 2003 j'ai noté cette impatience au bombardement et l'utilisation de pièces de trop fort calibre dans les passages doux et calme fait un peu anticlimax dans la présentation d'un spectacle pyrotehnique . On doit vivre à fond les passages plus "smooth" avec les pièces appropriées et dans le même ordre d'idée y aller des bons calibres lorsque l'intensité monte. Un feu c,est une série de crescendo qui doit amener progressivement le spectateur vers le bouquet final.
Espana est probablement un bon choix musical pour lancer des feux mais pour moi cà ne sert pas bien une finale. L'autre soit le crescendo ne montait pas mais je me sentais plutôt comme dans un Montagne russe.
Les grosses bombes nautiques étaient tout simplement magnifiques. Ce passage a été d,ailleurs un des meilleurs du spectacle.
En conclusion un beau feu traditionnel avec un minimum de créativité et d'originalité. Toutefois j'ai bien senti les efforts de ces artificiers et en apprenant de leur performance je suis convaincu que BEM est mûre pour une présentation de haut niveau lors de leur prochain passage à Montréal. Ils sont sur la bonne voie.

Bonne journée à tout le monde.


Roger

P"S Je vois que quelques participants ont fêté tout comme moi leur anniversaire de naissance en juillet . On m"a donné entre autre deux billets pour la finale. ..une maudite bonne idée de cadeau ...

Thanks for your comments, Roger!

Anyways, I have boosted the score for Canada in synchronization, since I felt I was a bit harsh in that area. I gave them an overall of score of 8. But for the most part, it was average.

Trav.

I find some comments on the BEM's display a little bit severe, but I believe that there is a consensus that the Canadian team is not going to jump on the podium this year.

However, I strongly disagree with a "anonymous" participant who stated that the narrative "was written by someone with average writing talent". Unfortunately, this narrative was too long and presented without firework, but I found it very, very well written. I have started a new thread with the transcript of the Canadian narrative, as I have done with Australian and Swedish ones.

http://www.montreal-fireworks.com/forum/index.php?action=vthread&forum =9&topic=450

It is really well written, with a literary vocabulary and stylistic device.

Frédérick

Fred,

Sorry if I was a bit severe in some remarks about the narration, but I simply can't stand it when it's so long! But you're right, it was well written and well meaningful, but just too long for a fireworks show of this calibur.

Otherwise, this was one of the most exciting displays, as I said in my review. It was a great effort.

Once again, I'm sorry if I was harsh.

Regards,

Trav.

The criticisms were not harsh, they were fair.

BEM presented a big but unadventurous display. No interesting sequences or angles used, no special products or anything that had not been seen before (remember, the Maltese wheel is nothing new in Montreal).

They used a lot of cheap Chinese shells as filler - the crowd liked these because they were big calibre but barrage after barrage of red peonies does not a quality display make.

That said, the red and blue mine segment was cool but everything else was mundane with the same basic mistakes made as the last time they were there. Read Paul's report from back then about how they stepped on dim kamuro-type shells with bright ones. It was the same again this time. Using loud and cheap cakes as filler might excite the audience but does not work well in a pyromusical, especially when the music is quite or serene.

Five years ago, this would have been a decent effort for a newcomer, but as a "local" team they have no excuse not to know the current state of the art in Montreal - and it has advanced considerably in that time. Audiences always get excited with big and loud displays, but the art of the pyromusical is much more complex than that.

Hi Everyone,

I am sorry if I am late to comment on the Canadian Team's performance this year, but as I said in a previous message, I had visitors at home all week long, so I did not get much time to write. At least, I was able to attend all of the fireworks during their stay....they even came with me on the bridge, to see the one by Canada!

To tell you the truth, I really enjoyed the intensity of this display (Canada) throughout the 30 +++ minutes (yes, it did last more than 30 minutes), but I was truly disappointed by the finale. Sorry, but since this happened last week, I can't give you any details about what I saw......I don't have Trav's excellent memory What I can tell you, is that throughout the display, I thought that we would finally witness a GREAT FINALE! The intensity was there and they got me interested right up until.....the finale!

That was not a nice way to end such an exciting display. They were sending a few rockets in the sky and then, stopped and sent lower ones......and they did that a few times. At first, I thought they were teasing us and that this was their way of surprising us with a huge and intense finale. Then, when the show was finally over, I was so disappointed that this was all we were getting. Then, I thought that something must have gone really wrong during the finale. Do you think that this is what happened? I did record the finale, but each time they stopped sending shells (dead moments), I stopped recording because I feared I would not have enough memory space in my camera, since the show lasted until 10:35! So I do have the finale, but in several segments, on different clips....it does lose a lot in the excitement!
I much prefer to have the entire finale on one single clip.....oh well!

Pierre

Pierre,

It doesn't really matter. I'm sure you were disappointed this year as I was. I'm glad you recorded almost all the finales and I do look foward to watch them, but it seems that I'm not that excited, like last year. . It was disappointing this year wasn't it?

Even last night wasn't the best Panzera finale. I had to watch many finale videos today to calm myself... lol

At least, we got the chance to witness many excellent displays. But what I'm worried is whether the real finales are now history...

Enkil,

I do feel the same way as you do....exactly! This year was far from being the best one, if you think of finales! And yes, I am truly disappointed. It's funny, because I did the same as you did. I had to watch past years' finales to satisfy my craving for intense finales.....and when I compare them to this year's best finales (France, Sweden, USA and La Ronde), they were still more intense and exciting! I don't think that "real" finales are history.....I just think that 2005 wasn't good to us in that regard and that next year will be much better for us! Like you said, at least we have had wonderful displays in 2005.

I will be putting all the finales that I have recorded this year on dvd during the course of this week.....and I will be sending it to Paul, so that you can view them. I just hope you will enjoy them, even if the intensity was not really there this year!

Take care, Enkil!

Pierre

Enkil
t'es vraiment un criss d'inculte