Blast Off for ‘Out of this World’ Rock Concert
A Dundee man is fulfilling his lifelong dream of channelling his love of science and music into a spectacular rock concert.
With stunning visual effects and a custom-made light show, The Science Fiction Experience will see an eight-piece professional rock band perform a variety of songs at Gardyne Theatre on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 April 2023.
Credit – Dylan Drummond, Son of the Sea.
Produced by science writer David Darling, author of 50 books published in over 20 countries, the show will take the audience on a journey through the cosmos with eighteen distinct pieces of music. A combination of originals and covers, they will range in style from progressive rock to classical, performed during two 45-minute sets. From The Blue Danube and Rocket Man to the theme from Startrek Enterprise, plus originals such as When Worlds Collide and Princess of Mars, the concert will be further enhanced by dancers, a choir and a vast video wall featuring custom-made footage and spectacular sound and visual effects.
David, who wrote all the original songs for the show, said, “There has always been a crossover between music and science and, combined, they provide scope for a fantastic, highly-charged experience, more than just a rock concert. This show has been years in the planning and we’ve created something extraordinary – unique in fact – a multi-sensory rock concert themed around science and science fiction but with a backdrop of theatre and drama.
David Darling. Credit – Dylan Drummond, Son of the Sea.
“More than ever, we all need an escape from normality, and The Science Fiction Experience will transport the audience out of this world and into another, more fantastic and extraordinary. Taking their seats in the theatre, the audience will feel like they’re looking through a window into the cosmos, staring into a spaceship before heading off on a journey through the cosmos. They’ll be moved and entertained by a range of musical tracks from the menacing sound of Frankenstein to classical, orchestral pieces and prog-rock.”
After its Dundee debut, the show is expected to move on to various larger Scottish venues and, ultimately, tour across the UK.
David continued, “We have ambitious plans to take The Science Fiction Experience to venues and festivals across the country, but its roots will always be in Dundee. We are delighted to have so much homegrown talent in the show, from musicians to dancers, alongside the professionals doing the arrangements and creating the visual aspects of the event. Each song will be different, some centred on the themes of my own books, but we’ve also got a dramatic piece based on one of the world’s most enduring works of Gothic fiction, Frankenstein, which Mary Shelley was inspired to write following her time living in Dundee in the early 1800s. It’s a powerful, heavy, menacing track that adds real depth to the portfolio of material we’ll be performing.”
David was born in Derbyshire but moved to Dundee 18 years ago with his American wife. He has a PhD in astronomy from Manchester University and worked for several years in the United States before returning to the UK as a full-time science writer in the 1980s. He has lectured widely around the world and written dozens of books on subjects from cosmology to life in the universe. His first music album, Songs of the Cosmos, came out in 2014.
Tickets for The Science Fiction Experience, which cost £22, are available from Dundee Box Office (www.dundeebox.co.uk).
ENDS