2024 show music

[MontanaMike]

I always edit down the songs for our show and make a continuous mix -- each song is around a minute to 1:30 long, at most. I make it as seamless as possible from one song to the next. To be totally honest, I probably spend way more time on my soundtracks than necessary, but people do always comment that they love our soundtracks. Here's a list of what I used this year:

Money For Nothing – Dire Straits (intro only)
Start Me Up – Rolling Stones
Can’t Stop the Feeling – Justin Timberlake
24K Magic – Bruno Mars
All Star – Smash Mouth
Cake By The Ocean – DNCE
Lil Boo Thang – Paul Russell
Baby One More Time – Tenacious D
Semi-Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind
Raise Your Glass – Pink
Blinding Lights – The Weeknd
Love From the Other Side – Fall Out Boy
Just Like Paradise – David Lee Roth
There’s Only One Way to Rock – Sammy Hagar (fourth time we've used this one, it's got a killer ending just made for finales)

Total time of the soundtrack is 19:04.

What's on your track this year?

[PyroFL]

I had to laugh when I seen your question of what tracks pyros are using this year.

To be honest I have no clue and I script it all to music.

We did a drawing this year and the winner was progressive house music, which no one knew what it was besides the one pyro family who drop their pick in the hat.

In short it wouldn’t work at all for a pyro show and it’s more eastern Europe restaurant background music to me.

We ended up settling on some type of music that reminds me of gamer music and/or music you hear in action movies.

I always pick one song no matter what and I picked “Time to retribution” by Really Slow Motion.

Next year we’re doing 80/90 rock music which I’ve already picked out all the music. Let’s just say that I’m excited would be an understatement.

At the moment am already working on EFX and manufacturing custom effects for 2025.

Think Rammstein 2023 tour, Alice Copper, Metallica, Iron Maiden pyro show (not using any of there music) with a lot of effects, lights and my favorite FIRE, fireballs, fuel mine, flash pots to report.

Full show production next year

[rthruska]

i think I have 8 songs set up. really looking forward to this song, Titanium (feat. Sia) [David Guetta & MORTEN Future Rave Remix]. I use all genres of music but I always play full songs

[PyroFL]

i think I have 8 songs set up. really looking forward to this song, Titanium (feat. Sia) [David Guetta & MORTEN Future Rave Remix]. I use all genres of music but I always play full songs

I do the same thing with playing the full song with maybe cutting a little on the front or backend.

Not sure who made the rule you have to cut the songs down … LOL

I can see Titanium being an amazing song to do with falling leafs.

Looking forward to seeing posted mid-July

[KDirk]

I pick all the music (though will consider suggestions) since I'm the one paying for and running the whole thing. Luckily, the crowd at my show has musical taste that falls pretty well in line with my own (classic/80's rock). I generally start off with 80's rock, do some patriotic standards and use 1812 Overture for the big finish. A couple of these songs I added because my younger nieces and nephews really like them (odd as it is for them to be so heavily into 80's rock, I dig it). Last years playlist:

Money For Nothing
Eye of the Tiger
Freeze Frame (J Geils Band)
Nothing but a Good Time
Kickstart My Heart
Just Like Paradise
A Lil' Ain't Enough (David Lee Roth)
A live cut of Ray Charles "America" from an older TV broadcast I found online, edited for remove "fluff" before and after the song.
A medley of marches (Stars and Stripes etc.)
1812 Overture

Show ran over an hour, which is maybe a little too long. Pacing wasn't entirely great due to some technical issues and falling back to hand lighting a portion of the show. Due to the budget for this year being reduced, I'll tweak the playlist and the run time will be less than 2023.

[PyroFL]

WOW an hour!

I run right around $470 to $475 per minute. Hour would be way way out if budget

[KDirk]

Well, keep in mind that the pacing of my show has typically been slower than what I suspect most here are presenting. If I condensed the amount of product I shot last year (~$2900 at wholesale) into a 20 minute shoot, it would be pretty darn impressive.

Maybe I should just buck up and do it that way. I guess I like the show to last a bit longer, versus a non-stop high intensity shoot. Makes the finale hit harder too, since there's more of a dichotomy between the regular portion and the big finish. At least that's how I see it.

[markcockrell]

Only my second year of (very loosely) scripting to music. Below are the selections I've put together- all of them cut to different lengths, and almost never using the intros. I like to play with the lyrical content, e.g. Bring Me to Life ends with "...wake me up inside" and Radioactive begins with "I'm waking up.." The runtime is 21:50 at the moment- down from just under 30 minutes last year. I noticed people were getting a little bored and antsy at around the 20-minute mark last year.

Boom - P.O.D
Bring me to Life - Evanescence
Radioactive - Imagine Dragons
Portals (from Avengers End Game) - Alan Silvestri
O Fortuna from Carmina Burana - Carl Orff
Immortal - Fallout Boy
Carry on My Wayward Son - Kansas
America the Beautiful, Rock Instrumental - Stolen from YouTube
God Bless the U.S.A. - Lee Greenwood
The Star Spangled Banner, Heavy Metal Instrumental - Stolen from YouTube

[MontanaMike]

I guess there's no rule saying the songs must be edited, but I get a kick out of editing them and beatmatching one song to the next sometimes. My goal is to make it sound like there's one killer band playing all the songs non-stop. I tell people, if you don't like a song, just wait a minute and there'll be a different one.

We always strive for at least one quiet moment in the show, normally within the last 3 minutes, in which everything goes dark for a few seconds -- in this year's show, its the into to "Love From the Other Side," which has an orchestral intro that I cut down to about 15 seconds, before the uptempo main song starts. Then the faster, familiar rock kicks in which leads up to the finale.

As for show length, I take a lot of inspiration from Disney. Their firework shows almost never run more than 20 minutes - and are usually a tad bit less. "Leave 'em wanting more" is a good motto to follow.

I used to worry a bit about lyrical content in the songs and I still like a good party anthem, but nobody is listening to the lyrics, and they often get drowned out anyway.

I never use slow or classical songs -- they seem much better suited to 1.3 shows, since the larger effects tend to "move slower" in the sky compared to the 1.4 effects. I stopped using most of the patriotic tunes for the same reason, plus how many times do you really need to hear "God Bless the USA" anyway?

A few years ago, in an attempt to modernize our show a bit, I asked a college age friend to send me a list of uptempo songs she liked. The result was one of my favorite soundtracks (because the songs haven't been done to death), but it was among our least popular. In fact it was the only time anyone came up to me afterward and said "I didn't like the music as much this year." I came to the realization that people don't really care what the music is, BUT they react better if they know the songs. They don't go to a fireworks show to discover new music. So it was back to the familiar hits. I've done all-'80s, all-70s, and (like this year) a mix variety. I keep a spreadsheet of all the songs we've ever used.

[topshelfpyro]

not actually doing music this year. Feels weird to script, but not to music. When I do music I always start with the Anthem for the 4th and then give people a few seconds to sit back down. After that its whatever moves me that year lol I really like instrumentals now, but rock is so easy. I try to keep it at 20 minutes total run time give or take a couple. Less than 180 cues for this year where i'm generally in the 850+ range. Hopefully not a snooze fest.

[Birdman]

Doing my usual 2 songs this year. No edits to the songs. The show will be about 8 mins long. As usual, more of a musical accompaniment show then a pyromusical. I just don't have the space or resources to pull off a true pyromusical.

Blinding Lights - The Weeknd
Light it up - Morgane Heritage (feat. Jo Mersa Marley)

Here's my concept video for this year. Keep in mind it's just a concept video to help me visualize effects and timing.

https://vimeo.com/968835523

[PYRODAN]

I always edit down the songs for our show and make a continuous mix -- each song is around a minute to 1:30 long, at most. I make it as seamless as possible from one song to the next. To be totally honest, I probably spend way more time on my soundtracks than necessary, but people do always comment that they love our soundtracks. Here's a list of what I used this year:

Money For Nothing – Dire Straits (intro only)
Start Me Up – Rolling Stones
Can’t Stop the Feeling – Justin Timberlake
24K Magic – Bruno Mars
All Star – Smash Mouth
Cake By The Ocean – DNCE
Lil Boo Thang – Paul Russell
Baby One More Time – Tenacious D
Semi-Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind
Raise Your Glass – Pink
Blinding Lights – The Weeknd
Love From the Other Side – Fall Out Boy
Just Like Paradise – David Lee Roth
There’s Only One Way to Rock – Sammy Hagar (fourth time we've used this one, it's got a killer ending just made for finales)

Total time of the soundtrack is 19:04.

What's on your track this year?

Man I'm getting old. I only recognize 3 songs on this list!

[KDirk]

To be honest, I never much cared for music with a fireworks show. But I think that was largely due to the fact that the municipal show I used to go to years ago used a lot of current music that I just didn't like. I remember 20 some odd years ago going to the 4th of July display in my hometown and they were playing Britney Spears and some boy band shlock. I should add also that they had only started doing music during the fireworks show a few years prior to that.

They used to have a live band that would play mostly classic rock before the fireworks started. Said band would perform the national anthem with a vocalist from the local high school choral program just before the show got underway, and then it was nothing but the sound of big booms for the duration.

I didn't do any music at my first few large, semi organized shows as a matter of personal preference, but some in attendance began asking for it, so 4 years ago I capitulated. It has been well received, so I've continued to do it. At least I'm using tunes that I don't object to, so there is that. But with my nieces getting older, it's probably inevitable I'll start getting requests for Taylor Swift or some such. Thankfully that hasn't happened yet.