Report by The Legendary Graham

Two weeks to go to the display and out of around a hundred people at work not a single person will cover me to have the night off, how bad is that?! Hey come on guys I am dying here I have fireworks to let off! Don't you lot ever listen to me this is the end of the world for me a display and I cant go to it. Aaaagggghhhhh!

Thankfully at the last minute Brad offered to work on his own for the night and not kick up a stink about it. I salute you Brad - you made my day - beers are on me.

So off I shot like a bat out of hell into the taxi and up to Halifax to the Mill complex to be greeted with a pile of gear ready for setting out, heheh… firing time's a coming. The display was part of a party to finish off the celebration on completion of work on the roof of the mill.

The rooftop venue with various candles (left) and large pyro (right).

We set the gear out and the shells and candles went in the usual positions. Woah! Kick ass top cakes on offer here. Poisonous Spider being one of them along with the Double Dragon mine combi cake (blue mines to silver brocades), and then the mother of all cakes made an appearance, it's big it's bad and it did something naughty!!!!

Amongst all this a waterfall was added to the front of the car park. Mines were set, a ground maroon at the ready, new big candles were fastened tight and it was time to wait for firing time for an in yer face adult display. Fingers in ears at the ready because it was going to be loud.

Time for a photo shoot of the cakes etc. whilst we waited to fire, it was good to get together again and have a laugh, ready to start the pyro season off again.

A view of the venue from ground level and you can see how the firing area is surrounded on all sides by concrete.

The main shell rack with a variety of different sizes.

A look under the wrapping of the Double Dragon cake!

This is me setting up the candle racks.

The spectacular Poisonous Spider.

This is me next to a 4 Minute Spectacular cake.

From left to right: Pete, Mick, me (TLG), Dave, Ian and Gren.

The moment came. The flood lights went out and the strobes started. The whole area flashed on and off with the bright light emitted from the strobes.

Fwapp! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! The waterfall burst into life along with a couple of conic fountains, as these roared, off went the ground maroon BOOOM! it went as it echoed off all of the buildings. Next the mines blew and on to the fanned comet cakes.

Up went the first of the shells then a candle rack and straight in with a big cake. No nonsense here just noise and power at a fast pace, and being surrounded by concrete every launch and every bang made your trousers flap, what a dilemma! Do I watch or take photos… the camera won and I continued snapping away.

The new Sky Blitz candles proved why they cost so much as they fired away with huge crossettes and hummers. Whilst I was being bombarded with bits and pieces I saw Pete move on to the Poisonous Spider (here we go I thought aggressive tourbillions with massive reports one after the other). I couldn't have been further from the truth, this was a new version of an evil cake it went mad - multiple shots at a time went whirling into the sky breaking to clouds of stars a lot of money went up in a few seconds but what a few seconds they were!!!

Time to fire the monster 4" shells and showing the sky what it was made for as golden brocades sent their fiery golden trails across the sky, the dragons eggs was going mad making the whole place crackle like a popcorn factory under a napalm attack.

Another fuse was lit… the first few shots fired, soaring into the sky they went, noise ensued as they broke to long burning red stars and… that was it, come on fire again ya bugger this pause was more of a full maturity than a pregnant one the sod had blown out!!! (Back at work I had to laugh about this. A friend had bought a selection box from us and complained that an 18 shot £1 barrage only fired 17 shots. And here we were faced with a £xxx cake that didn't want to play he has no idea!).

Oh well good job cat 4 cakes have a secondary fuse, this was lit and the cake fired back into life it was all singing and all dancing producing every effect you could have hoped for along with some great fusing to produce barrages of shots and little pauses so you could appreciate the longer lasting effects. As this was doing its business the last of the shells went skyward filled the sky with blue stars and faded away to a cheer from the crowd.

Blue shells pictured by Mary.

More pictures from Mary.

Pictures from TLG from close-up including the waterfall (middle) and Dragon's Eggs (right).

Out came noo noo to suck up all the crap. The racks were dismantled, the candles set free and everything packed away ready to go to the great firework skip in the sky. As we were clearing up a few kids who had watched the show were shouting "Wow! Hey where do you get your fireworks from". Sorry boys you can't buy these in the shops.

View of the 4 Minute Spectacular after firing.

Poisonous Spider after firing.

The big bore Double Dragon after firing.

Time to go to the party. And what a party. A live band was playing away, the sax was sending its vibes around the room and the drums were strumming away. The food was fantastic, I took a moment to myself, looked at the band, the venue and the people I was with and thought to myself the wife is gonna kill me 8)

T.L.G.

Many thanks for that great report Graham and to you and Mary for the additional picture material - Pyro Pete

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Images endorsed ©TLG - source images ©The Legendary Graham, used with permission. Images endorsed ©MB - source images ©Mary Burridge, used with permission. This feature produced by and ©2004 UK Firework Review. All rights reserved.