To start with, I love San Antonio and have lived here longer than anywhere else. There are very few things about this city, and all the cultures within it, that I don't love. Unfortunately, the Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular is now one of them.
I have heard about this supposed phenomena for years but never went. I like Pink Floyd, and have always admired Roger Waters, but if I'm going to see anything relating to Pink Floyd, I'd like to see the real thing. This year, however, they advertised that the show would incorporate the Wizard of Oz, one of my wife's favorite movies. So we decided to attend at the last minute.
When the music finally started and the laser barrage began, both my wife and I figured the show designer wanted to start off small and work up. That, and we assumed once the Wizard of Oz portion started, the lasers would be a peripheral additive to the show. So we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . .
Oh, there was a scene from the Wizard of Oz, all right. About three minutes' worth. And then back to the original Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon footage from the 70s. And laser-outline pictures. How clever.
What we didn't understand was the uproarious response from the assembled crowd. My wife and I go to several concerts a year and have never heard that kind of response for a band that was actually on stage. There was screaming and yelling and a whole lot of "hell yeah!" All for . . . this?
My wife and I came to the realization, after leaving during the intermission, that the Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular caters to the lowest common denominator: the pot-smoking, low-income rube who pretends to understand the symbolism of Roger Waters' lyrics while mumbling through the verses.
Honestly, for much less than $83, my wife and I could have gotten the same effect by smoking a bowl and staring at my computer's screen saver for an hour. And we wouldn't have had to put up with the fog of cheap perfume that filled the theater.