A wise man once said, “It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.” With that said, “Rock the Dome” still has a long way to go before it is certified to rock. Advertised as an out-of-this-world experience, with classic rock music and matching visuals to boot, “Rock the Dome” unfortunately was not as rockin’ as its preview suggested.
The most recent event took place Saturday at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, where, upon entering the theater, attendees were greeted by a 76-foot tiled dome screen, encompassing the majority of the room. The first visual shown to the audience was an enormous red “wind” tunnel, with the middle of it slowly getting closer and closer, giving viewers the illusion the room was being sucked into a black hole. In reality, the only thing that was sucked were the souls of the audience.
“Rock the Dome,” which lasted an hour, played great classic hits such as “Back in the USSR” by the Beatles, “Good Times Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin and “Back in Black” by AC/DC, but the overall experience was lackluster, presenting cheesy visual graphics better suited for a Windows ’98 screensaver.
Furthermore, between the high volume of the music and the in-your-face graphics, motion sickness and claustrophobia were an added bonus to this delightful experience (and no, this isn’t coming from a geriatric 90-year-old). Interestingly enough, the event was advertised to allow the audience to choose the playlist, but essentially it was just a corny disc jockey (or Dome Jockey, as he so-happily dubbed himself) asking the audience to decide between two songs, with the amount of clapping and noise-making determining which song would be played next. Even if the audience chose one song, the one that wasn’t chosen was played right after, making the voting process as valid as Florida’s in the 2000 presidential election.
Though the only aspect that salvaged “Rock the Dome” was the music selection, this event should consider renaming itself to reflect more of an honest representation of the show. Maybe something like “Welcome to Sham-rock” perhaps?
