Post your reviews of the Spanish display here!

Paul.

Alright guys, I'm departing to the fireworks early due to possible early traffic closures.

I'll see you guys tonight when you post your comments! Enjoy the pleasant weather (besides the slight coolness) and especially the show. Have fun!

Bye!

Trav.

Well, I have to say it felt really great to finally go to the fireworks from the new Montmorency station for the first time in my life lol. It took me about 35 minutes to arrive on Notre-Dame street.

Tonight felt a bit anti-climatic, mainly because it was the first display, and so I guess my mood will probably influence my review.

Well, the thing that I really didn't like about tonight's show was the soundtrack. I suppose I don't like Jazz, and the songs were not so great, maybe good enough for a fireworks show. I think there was at least one Spanish song, and it was a good one. Overall, the display was well synchronized with the music.

I don't think it's best show I've seen. I was kind of expecting something more impressive from Igual. The display on average was very well done and more and less enjoyable. But I know it was good enough for the average spectator. To me, there was nothing really special. I think the soundtrack really affected my opinion about the whole display.

There were some good and boring/repetitive moments. I really liked it how they integrated a little Happy Brithday message for La Ronde in their display. I thought it was very well done. I think from that point, the show got slightly better, but it still had its boring and exciting moments.

The faux-finale was blah. Kamuros? No! The finale was probably better than their 2004 finale, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't good as the 2001 one. I know this because it certainly wasn't as intense as France's 2004 finale. However, I think it was just good, but not very impressive. I suppose we're in a new era now, where a big finale is almost a thing of the past.

I wrote this review from Notre-Dame street.

Hello everyone,

Well, well! We were certainly treated with quite a show tonight from the well known Igual, but I must say that I was quite impressed with many aspects of this show altogether.

The show was generally well designed and well synchronized all the way through, and the variations in pace were quite cleverly delivered with changes in music. In general, the show was powerful and fast for nearly 80% of the time, while the faux finale and real finale were quite anticipating and intense, just as expected.

I'd have to agree with Enkil on the faux finale, but the real thing was spectacular as it had excellent build up (though that of 2001 was much more powerful). I enjoyed the finale to an optimum evel because of the variation of the thundering salutes at the end and the strong build up before that; typical of Igual! The colors were very rich and in good variety, as expressed clearly in the press release, along with some gorgeous effects at ground level!

I personally don't really care for Jazz music all that much, but it certainly showed and worked very well with this sort of display, while still enforced by the selected theme. However, I always welcome a more Spanish selection of music since it works even better with the fireworks in terms of rhythm.

The winds were bothering me a bit since they were gusting a lot between 8-9:00 p.m, but they died down just to the level I expected them at, if not then just a bit breezier. The winds however contributed to the more chilly feeling, so I hope everyone had their jackets handy.

All in all, an excellent start to the 2007 fireworks competition, and it was a pleasure to see such a strong opening after the usual long waiting period! I'll have more comments later on today. Hope to hear from the rest of you soon! I'm also hoping that Pierre and other enthusiasts were able to see this beautiful display, too!

Trav.

Echoing what Trav wrote, an excellent start to the 2007 competition. The challenge for me, your humble reporter, is that the official soundtrack supplied by La Ronde has 48 pieces of music listed - and they're not quite in the actual order that was used in the display! So, I will do my best and indicate the names of the tracks that I recognized and just include the list as a reference!

I must say that the salute sequences in the finale were some of the best I've ever seen done in Montreal - the rhythmic effect was extremely well executed.

I have the first 20 minutes of so of the display report completed - the rest will be done later today as unfortunately I have to work now

Paul.

So I don't know what to think about this display. Maybe it was because I've been waiting for months for this competition to start again. I thought the show was just ok. The syncro was really well done for the most part, but I didn't really feel like the fireworks didn't always matched what was going on with the music. The faux finale was nice but nothing more then that, I did however enjoy their real finale. I guess I was just expecting so much more from Igual. None of this show made me want to scream with excitement like some of the shows last year (AUS and South Africa)

In my opinion, this first entrant made a strong performance last night. There was a wide range of pieces, beautiful pyrotechnic effects and the synchronization was excellent throughout the show.

I think that low-level effects (i.e. nautical pieces) were too concentrated during the first half of the show and that the second one was really about high-level pieces. It would have been interesting to reach a better balance, but this is a minor point.

I believe that the issue here is the decision to devoted the entire soundtrack to jazz music. Due to the popularity of the Montreal Jazz Festival, it looks that Pirotecnia Igual tought that the audience would like this kind of music. My feeling is rather that not so much people are genuine fanatics of jazz. I suspect that jazz version of popular songs (like Yesterday) were welcomed but that "pure jazz" wasn't.

However, this soundtrack was a work of art. It included 48 segments. It was worthwhile to see Paul's face when he discovered the listing! I congratulate him to take up the challenge and to nonetheless write a report with all these segments!

I think that it is a record-breaking number of segments for the Montreal Firework Competition. According to my notes, Panzera's closing show in 2000, about the music of cartoons, was made of 41 segments. I think that Panzera have also done a second show with about 40 segments, but I don't retrive this information. Anyone has information?

Also, the mixing of the music was perfect throughout the show, with no interruption. The designer of the show discussed about this with me, in an interview for PyroPlanet:

http://www.pyroplanet.com/index.html

We were fortunate with weather conditions last night. The light crowd was in opposition with the huge audience of the opening show last year. This is not a surprise since few people are ready to go out to see a firework display as they have to work the following morning.

I also emphasize a decision made by La Ronde to re-open most rides for 60 minutes following the show. Since 2002, they were closed most of the time as the displays ended. It is promising decision to allow guests to continue the party after the firework.

Fred

Hello everyone,

We certainly had an interesting last couple of days with respect to the weather along with a rewarding performance from the Spanish team last night. A cold front passing through from Tuesday gave way to thunderstorms/heavy rains leading to a much cooler and much less humid variation of weather throughout yesterday. As a result, the weather pretty much lived up to its end of the bargain with a few cloudy periods and somewhat breezy conditions around the time of commencing the display (stronger winds at around 8:00), giving way to the infamous Pirotechnia Igual! Though starting approximately 3 seconds before the countdown was completed, the first entrant of the 2007 Montreal fireworks competition really gave us a gorgeous performance with plenty of activity from beginning to end.

The opening was very dramatic with some colorful large bright mines followed by a series of shells at mid and high levels only making way for other dazzling effects throughout this section. The wide range of effects that were seen was very much welcomed, especially in the way they were ultimately sequenced with the music in different segments. Many of these included many shells of swirls, screaming serpents, hearts, triple colored ring shells, single rings, weeping willows, scattered shots, go-getters, blue and red shells that took the form of "@", mid-leveled shells constituted of a mixture of the lemon-yellow and green mixture (half-half), and then my personal favorite, the silver sparkling double-ascension girandolas shown moments after the introduction of the display. Finally, as expected from Igual, massive barrages of shells often made an appearance in many colors from mid levels to extremely high levels of the sky, creating many deafening noises and noticeable vibrations that caused car alarms to go off frequently behind where I was standing. However, I didn't notice any shell of shells integrated during the display, which would have been more than welcomed.

Ground level effects included many beautiful sequences of mines, gold sparkling fountains and many low level cracklers that made a distinctive echo. There was additionally a moment near midway where spinning wheels were lighted up nicely in red. Most notably, just after the opening at ground level, I noticed a beautiful structure centered in the middle that had been lit up and assisted with some glowing effects both to the left and right of it (not sure if these were the nautical pieces).

Synchronization was simply wonderful and made the music, at times, much more enjoyable. One particularly interesting aspect of this show was again the sequencing used in creativity; there was a good example demonstrated in a piece where the screaming serpents went along with the flute instrument in one of the soundtrack used. The music itself was generally well considered and it certainly worked well with this kind of approach altogether. Not being a fan of Jazz music didn't really influence my judgment on the show due to the fact that the fireworks were in excellent coordination most of the time with it anyway. As mentioned by Fred, though many may not necessarily be major fans of this music genre, I, too, suspect that the more well known/popular soundtracks used, which I very much enjoyed, served to perk up the audience a little more at those respective points. However, I personally would have found the show to have a little more tempo if there were more Spanish-related soundtrack involved since this usually works well with rhythmic flow and make things a little more potentially exciting. Because of the absence of Spanish-based music, it sort of felt a little different than usual when watching the display, though this not necessarily a bad thing.

The colors, as nicely stated in the press release, involved a gorgeous spectrum. I was actually remarkably impressed with much of the mixtures seen and the way they contrasted at certain periods during the show. Much of them included, blue, green, white/silver, red/crimson, orange, and magenta. I personally loved the magenta at certain points since it was nicely mixed in with the white ball stars that were often associated with it.

Trav's personal rankings:

-Synchronization: 9.5/10-A nicely synchronized display from beginning to end, though perhaps a couple of spots slightly off from my viewpoint.
-Colors: 9.5/10-Not much to say but a great selection of colors. Colors were used well to contrast in many parts of the display.
-Creativity/Originality/Concept: 9/10-While the theme was unique; I equally thought that the sequencing served as a shear force for creativity. Salutes were commonly intertwined within most segments in conjunction with other shells and/or roman candles, which is always a thrill to see. The shell of shells would have been a great addition in certain spots, though.
-Choice of music: 8/10-I had a hard time with judging this because I had mixed feelings about it. I'm not fond of Jazz music, but I felt it worked out fine with the display, so my rating may also be considered variable under these circumstances.
-Finale/General appreciation: 9.2/10-Though the faux finale was a little redundant, the real thing was powerful and had excellent crescendo followed by a dazzling shower of flamboyant colors in all their glory. Though the ending was not on par with the finale witnessed in 2001, it was still a hyper-ending that the crowd expected to see. The overall appreciation of the show was fabulous with much enthusiastic cheer from the audience most of the time!
-Overall: 9/10


^^^
There's a good chance that I will have to adjust the score to leave room for the other display rankings, but for now that's where I stand (final adjustments will be done by the closing show). *These are also my personal rankings based on my viewpoints via De Lorimier and Notre-Dame streets.

This was a very well concocted display from our first participant and I was very much impressed by it. The ground level effects were particularly stunning (especially in the first half of the display) and there was excellent contrast with the color variations. Sequencing was a particularly important factor during many pieces considering that it often moved nearly precisely with the music itself; if fact, it often appeared as if the fireworks were dancing along with the music. The fluent slow and fast paces between segments was also quite clever and allowed for good tranquil moments to suddenly burst into a more classical robust behavior. The music choice may not have been a personal favorite by many individuals, but I personally thought that the show was well choreographed and the soundtrack worked hand in hand with the fireworks throughout the show. My only criticism, besides perhaps a couple of spots being slightly off cue with the music and a small degree of redundancy, was that the theme, and therefore the music, was not typically Spanish-related, so this may potentially be of a little influence. However, on the other end of the spectrum, as already mentioned, the music did in fact work well with the display, so it may not necessarily be highly influential. If however considered to that extent, I suspect it will just come down to the personal taste in music.

Much of the effects were astonishing and the crowd always loves the shells of hearts and other unique-related shapes. The finale was particularly interesting with good sequencing (as Paul also pointed out) associated with the massive barrages and volleys of salutes, which we all enjoyed so very much. The noise was fearsome as the show came to a thunderous close followed by a high amount of delight from the smaller than normal population of spectators!

I had an excellent time last night and I really enjoyed what Igual had to offer us; this was a very strong effort from the Spanish team. I have a feeling it will be yet another difficult year for the judges!

Trav.

p.s. Did anyone hear that first shot launch and not see a flash at about 9:07? Similarly, unlike last year and the year before, I didn't notice any barrages of shells fired at about 9:27, but like the former years before 2005, we did witness the usual first salute at that time and 9:32 respectively.

Hi Everyone!

It's good to be back in this forum, meeting you all! It's also wonderful to attend this firework festival again after this long wait!

I think that the weather was perfect last evening for this first display......20C and dry conditions, which both contributed to keep the fireworks from forming too much smoke....and a little breeze to blow away the little smoke that was produced. That way, the sky was clear and the display was bright. About the music, I was a bit disappointed that Jazz was chosen, since I expected an Hispanic kind of music.....but I think the theme was "The 1960's" throughout the display.....to celebrate the 40th Birthday of Expo 67, as well as La Ronde's. Weren't all those songs from the '60's? They sounded like it anyway. I am probably one of the few in this forum, who roamed around Expo 67.....I was 7 at the time, so I remember it very well. I sincerely hope that the team from Canada will be focusing on Expo 67 in its display later on in this competition, to emphasize on the fact that La Ronde is celebrating its 40th......I am sure that you all have heard of Expo 67....it was SOMETHING to see for sure.....AMAZING and very hard to describe in words. You just had to be there to feel it. That was the best Summer I lived to this day, by far. OK...back to yesterday's display....hehehe

As Enkil mentionned, yes, I heard Marilyn Monroe sing her famous "Happy Birthday to you", which originally was meant for JFK....but I figured it was meant for "Expo 67-La Ronde" in this display. Very thoughtful of the Spanish team Since I was so eager to finally watch a firework display, last December being the last time I attended a display, I can say that Spain was quite good....with an intense finale that included those SALUTES, which still move me everytime I see/feel them! Not too bad for a first display, but I do hope there'll be more intense displays in the near future, with finales that have this ability to bring tears to my eyes. I do attend fireworks for these reasons....to make my heart skip a beat, make the palm of my hands sweat and bring a smile to my face

It's nice to read all your comments again (Hi Travis ). I just can't believe a year went by already.....Woof! Where did all those months go?

Oh.....I did record the finale....but missed the short part at the very end, since I thought the finale was over.....I should have known better!

Here's to Expo 67, to this new Fireworks season and to a wonderful Summer for all of us!


Pierre

will pyroplanet video everything again?? i wish they will!

Wow, c'est un plaisir de retrouver tous vos commentaires après des mois d'absence! Je vous incite à inviter les gens que vous connaissez et qui assistent aux feux à se joindre à nous pour partager leurs commentaires et leur préciser, le cas échéant, qu'ils peuvent également le faire en français.



blue and red shells that took the form of "@"

Trav, I believe that you are talking about spiral shells.

I sincerely hope that the team from Canada will be focusing on Expo 67 in its display later on in this competition, to emphasize on the fact that La Ronde is celebrating its 40th......

Pierre, le feu canadien sera sur le thème "Zeus de l'Olympe". Le programme officiel nous annonce une bande sonore constituée d'indicatifs musicaux de jeux Olympiques. Par contre, le feu de clôture préparé par Panzera aura pour titre "Retour vers 67". On nous annonce des succès musicaux des années 60, incluant les mélodies "Un jour, un jour" et "Amène-nous à La Ronde".

will pyroplanet video everything again??

No video material is planned at this time.

Fred

Photos from the Spanish display are now up - I'll also be posting a full video soon - only viewable by forum members!

Paul.

Enkil,

Just to correct one little minor detail in your review, but I think you were referring to the finale of France 2005, in which case, I do remember it being slightly more vehement in nature.

Pierre,

It's very nice to see your return to the forum and join us again, my friend. I was also very much thinking about you during the faux and real finales and trying to imagine what you were doing at the time.

In any case, it's also a pleasure to read your reports as well, Pierre, and I equally look forward to seeing what you recorded. I'm just happy that you were there to witness the display, too.

Fred,

Thank you very much for clarifying that effect for me. Those are usually quite pleasing and I know the audience always has a positive response to it, among other effects.

Paul,

Thanks for the photo announcement; they are, as always, very nicely taken. Bob always takes some gorgeous pictures during each display.

I also very much look forward to seeing that video!



*And guys, I'm not sure if you saw my previous question(s), but I'll restate it:

"Did anyone hear that first shot launch and not see a flash/hear a noise associated with it at about 9:07? Similarly, unlike last year and the year before, I didn't notice any barrages of shells fired at about 9:27, but like the former years before 2005, we did witness the usual first salute at that time and 9:32 respectively".

Nice to see you all here! I just don't want this time of year to go too quickly.

Trav.

Did anyone hear that first shot launch and not see a flash/hear a noise associated with it at about 9:07? Similarly, unlike last year and the year before, I didn't notice any barrages of shells fired at about 9:27, but like the former years before 2005, we did witness the usual first salute at that time and 9:32 respectively

Like every year, the opening ceremony started around 9:00pm and ended at 9:30pm. Salutes were launched at both time, and one shell was fired following the Spanish national anthem. For the upcoming displays, this ceremony will be shorter and should start at 9:30pm.

Fred

Thanks for the information, Fred. That explains why we heard that first salute just at about 9:07, though I find it strange that it did not explode and make the usual loud boom.

Trav.

Salut tout le monde,

Fred:

Merci Fred, pour les renseignements au sujet des chansons de l'Expo 67 qui feront partie intégrante de la trame sonore du feu de clôture.....ce sera un moment important pour moi, car tout ce qui me rappelle l'Expo 67, m'atteint positivement!

Travis:

Thank you so much for the warm welcome, my friend. Yes, I am back and so far, I have attended all three displays and recorded their finales too.....which I will share with all of you at the end of the competition. But let's not talk about the end of the competition now........I am too excited about the new season. To be honest, whenever the finale starts and gets more intense, my hands and arms start to shake from the pure excitement I feel......and unfortunately, it shows on my clips. I thought of bringing my tripod along, but it's too much to carry and also, it's harder to follow the display when it shifts from side to side, or vertically.

OK.......I'll post my comments on the English and Mexican displays now!

Pierre