HOLOGRAM JAM!
Prepare for digital resurrections of The Big O, Abba and Zappa – could it be the new frontier of live entertainment?
The notion of holographic versions of departed performers has intrigued and concerned musicheads since a virtual Tupac surprised the Coachella festival in 2012. The first full British tour of this sort arrives in April 2018, when Roy Orbison In Dreams – The Hologram Tour begins its 10-city run in Cardiff, with the late singer backed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The Big O’s son, Roy Orbison Jr, of family firm Roy’s Boys LLC, is confident concert-goers will be impressed. “The Michael Jackson hologram from 2014 was 700 pixels – this is a 4,000-pixel hologram. I knew we had something when they said, ‘The show begins: your father walks to the centre of the stage and sings [1961 hit] Only The Lonely.’ I almost get goosebumps thinking about it, like it’s going to be, I don’t know, Darth Vader walking to the stage… you know it’s kind of a hologram, but pretty quickly when you hear the music, you forget all that. The important thing is the voice – hearing [1962 45] Running Scared at full volume, in a room with other people. The hologram is the icing on the cake.” The construction of such holograms involves a digitised head and the specially-filmed body of an actor, but more was required to achieve the feel of a live vocal performance. “In some cases, we only had one source,” says Roy Jr. “So we used every trick in the book – we used the originals, live takes, outtakes, the re-records Roy did in 1985, in some cases all three or four in one song. That gives it freshness.” He adds that the experience of seeing someone who is no longer alive on-stage and singing again was affecting. “It’s emotional, of course it is. But I think Roy would have loved this. If he was here, it’s where he would have been in his career, as an elder statesman. And think what this means for music. Could you imagine seeing Louis Armstrong, Hank Williams, or B.B. King, or The Traveling Wilburys?” With a recreated Ronnie James Dio having toured Europe in December, there are other major names lined up for holographic returns. Benny Andersson has referred to an Abba hologram stage show, while Prince’s sister Tyka Nelson said she would authorise something similar as long as the technology guaranteed “excellent quality”. Next year Frank Zappa’s avatar and guitar parts will appear on-stage alongside ex-band members including Adrian Belew, Ian Underwood and Steve Vai, in a move that has not delighted Zappa’s son Dweezil. An active musician who’s played his father’s music live for a decade, he has argued that such productions are essentially, “a lip-sync show… an ‘actor’s’ interpretation” and that, “artificial humans promoted as being alive again and going on tour is not only fake but disturbing, in my opinion.” Yet Roy Orbison Jr is certain that the singing hologram will soon be a normal part of the entertainment landscape. “That’s where this technology is leading. I’ll be in the front row – I’ll go and see Frank Zappa, for sure.”