Thats the kind of experience we want to be delivering here.
I was like, I dont even know what an immersive show is,' she says.
But she found out that was OK: It gave them room to imagine it from scratch.
Derek Ridgers*
But its not like the mom and grandfather wont have heard of Taylor Swift.
And its not like kids have no interest in classic rock.
At this point, classic rock includes the Beatles and Green Day.
It includes Led Zeppelin and Nirvana.
It is sweeping across several generations.
We explain the story of what a band is and what those pieces are that form one.
Each one does a different job, says Oberman.
The Sam Cooke song is about civil rights.
Big Yellow Taxi is about ecology and the planet.
Arethas song is about freedom of expression and also just freedom to be who you are.
The Chappell Roan song is about LGBTQIA movement.
We wanted to tackle different subjects.
The floor is a really big part of the show, says Oberman.
When we were working on it, we kept saying, More floor!
It really helps tell the story.
You dont walk into a concert, sit quietly and focus on one spot.
The idea of this show is that theres so much happening you cant take it in all at once.
A key segment from the middle of the show concentrates on hardcore music fans across all generations.
Images flash on the screens of die-hards in their bedrooms and arena parking lots, dressed like their heroes.
And we always knew that fans were important.
Something similar happened in the segment about hair.
And then all of a sudden, everyone in the audience is wearing their hair in the same way.
And what does that mean?
It means they all want to live in this rock & roll fantasy.
The section about recording studios features a stunningly intimate video of Radiohead playing High and Dry in the mid-Nineties.
That section is about the miracle of creation, says Levy.
Thom Yorkes complaining about his guitar and asking Jonny Greenwood to tune it for him.
These kinds of things that happen when youre trying to put a song together.
What we wanted was to just deliver a little moment of the miraculous.
I found myself constantly questioning what we were doing, she says.
Id say, Is this immersive, though?
I want this part louder, this part softer, we need more floor here.
The stress of all that was challenging at times, but this was mostly pretty joyous.
We all just had so much fun creating it.
Oberman feels the same way.
