By Rebecca Nagel, Features Contributor
The Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium on the Buffalo State campus is showing a new laser light show. The Beatles Laser Music Experience is running every Friday at 8:30 p.m. through April 28. Since I was fortunate enough to be in the first group to have seen this show, I thought I’d review this experience.
This show was not my first laser music experience at the Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium because I attended their Metallica show last summer. Comparing both shows, I enjoyed the Beatles experience more. I liked the music more and the lasers were quite impressive.
To give some insight into these shows, they show general laser designs such as shapes and psychedelic, spiral-like images, but also add some imagery relating to the band or musician. Some of the imagery seen during this show included a yellow submarine, the octopus’ garden and line drawings of each of the Beatles. I thought that the psychedelic designs were more suitable for the Beatles much more than they did for Metallica because the Beatles have some psychedelic songs that fit the mold for those laser designs.
Now, you may be wondering what songs were featured in this show. The Whitworth Ferguson Planetarium website lists off their playlist, but here are some of my favorites that they played: “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” “Twist & Shout,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Yesterday” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
One new thing that was added to this show compared to previous ones was turning on the stars and constellations during John Lennon’s “Imagine.” This was easily the best part of the show and had a couple of people tearing up. Rather than having the lasers bouncing around, they took a gentler approach which turned out to be the highlight of this event.
Overall, I highly recommend getting tickets to attend The Beatles Laser Music Experience because it is different from anything else one could be doing on a Friday night in April, and it was truly an incredible experience.