I take back my words : Royal display was not Voilà-lite, it was Voilà, in all its glory !
I consider myself extremely lucky to have seen twice this extraordinary display. Now that I know the first one almost by heart (if I didn't watch Paul's video 20+ times, then I never did it), I knew exactly what to expect and Yanick Roy did it one more time !
This guy's amazing : force him to use only homologated effects (per the Canadian regulations) and reduce his budget and he's still able to reproduce his groundbreaking display, with all the punches at the good places and the original feeling left intact.
Instead of the 30 minutes the original display was, yesterday's show was only 2/3 that duration (which makes it 20 minutes). The result was that the slight loose ends (yes, some sequences in the original show were *very slightly* inferior to the rest) that I observed the first time were gone and the show really packed a punch.
All my favorite sequences were present:
- The Courtship
- Bummel Petrus (with the humorous golden comets leaping in the water)
- All of them now (with set pieces and fountains instead of the Niagara Falls)
- Wall-E (with 10 meters towers to boot)
- Rêverie, from Séraphin (with horsetails and nautical flares)
- Bullies and Sweet Rock (with the horizontal surfing comets)
I also stood besides a loaded 12" mortar, having gone on the wrong side of the lake and being authorized to take a few set-up pictures by Royal team members (the fact that I have my apprentice level card may have helped, legally speaking !)
Fortunately, I had the chance to personnally congratulate Yanick for his display, having missed the chance to do so at La Ronde and at the Jacques-Cartier quay last winter. I also met fellow Royal team members; it's always quite nice to see that everyone has the same level of passion and excitement in regards to fireworks and is always eager to take 15 minutes to talk about it !
I'm putting up a small review (very negative, obviously

) and a picture gallery as we speak (at this time, only the picture gallery is online; EDIT: everything is uploaded now). Head on to
my website for details.