Chicago Tribune
By Chris Heim
Laser show has all the ingredients except the band.

Technology is usually talked about in terms of its impact on
medicine, transportation, work and the like. But new tools and processes have
altered entertainment as well.

Concert effects were once considered elaborate if they included
bubble machine or the trippy '60s displays created from colored oil globules
heated and lit by overhead projectors. Those are primitive compared with the
lighting, large video screens and pyrotechnics that are routinely used today.
In fact, concert technology has become so sophisticated that shows can now
dispense with performers altogether.

"Paramount's Laser Spectacular Featuring the Music of Pink Floyd" is
one such show. Produced by Texas-based Paramount Entertainment, a promotion,
specialty-show and concert-equipment leasing and operations company, the
Laser Spectacular features laser and special effects synchronized to music
from Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," "The Wall" and "Momentary Lapse of
Reason" albums. The 90--minute show made its debut fifteen years ago and,
with continued modifications and additions, now tours some 75 cities each
year.

The Laser Spectacular says Steve Monistere, president of Paramount,
"has all the elements of a live concert without a band." It includes digital
sound pumped through a 10,000-watt concert-quality sound system, elaborate
lighting and props and-the star of the show-the brilliant colors, beams of
light, animated images (displayed on a 2,500-foot screen) and overhead
displays created by laser.

A laser (an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of
Radiation) produces a kind of chain reaction with light. The result is a
light beam so concentrated and powerful it can cut metal. First developed in
1960, the laser was initially used for industrial and technical applications
including digital recording, fiber optics, surveying and microsurgery. It
moved into the realm of entertainment says Monistere, in the early '70s in
Los Angeles. "They put a show into the planetarium there which is still
going," Monistere says. "It's been running now for 19 years. It was the
home base for one of the laser companies there, and they did these shows
every weekend. That got to be popular and they went out, I believe in the
late '70s and early '80s, touring around to other planetariums. Then
eventually they started doing permanent installations for other planetariums.
The planetarium is really where laser entertainment got its foothold."