This year’s Coachella Festival was special and like no other because of mastermind Dr. Dre’s idea of having a ‘Tupac Shakur Hologram’ perform live at the festival in the desert.
The supposed shot and killed infamous rapper Tupac came back alive last month on the weekends of April 13-15 and April 20-22 at the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
Coachella is an annual three-day music and arts festival, organized by Goldenvoice and held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, in the Inland Empire’s Coachella Valley.
Coachella is normally an annual event, but due to an overwhelming demand for tickets, the festival directors chose to expand the festival into a second weekend with an identical music lineup.
The festival is known for its stacked line-ups, its amazing performers, and its jaw-dropping performances.
This year, many of the fans were picking up their jaws off the ground when Tupac was resurrected on stage in a hologram.
The performance left such an impression on people that rap star and potential legend Nas spoke out saying, “Tupac has almost become Elvis, where people still think he’s alive, so the hologram thing I thought was genius of Dr. Dre and Snoop… I thought it was a great look for hip-hop as a whole. It stepped hip-hop up a notch, and it was revolutionary on a performance scale.”
After his life was taken in 1996, many fans yearned for something like this because they all miss the legendary Tupac Shakur.
Fans loved the unreal performance put on at the festival thanks to the extremely realistic experience and show that surprised many.
AV Concepts worked carefully and diligently to pull off Dr. Dre’s unique vision of the hologram.
Dr. Dre came up with idea himself and led the charge to work with an AV concepts team to use the astounding technology we have today to make Tupac ‘come back to life.’
The Huffington Post reports, “AV Concepts produced the hologram for Coachella, but its partner, Digital Domain Media Group, was responsible for the animation.”
The life-like image of Tupac Shakur was created using the latest technology, also seen in movies such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
It is reported that the Tupac hologram was several months in the planning and took almost four months to create in a studio. The costs were in between $100,000 and $400,000.
Although the hologram performance was released a few days before the concert, Coachella fans were amazed when Snoop Dogg took the stage along side the 3D Tupac to perform a classic west coast rap hit “2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted.”
The groups working behind this really did a great job in that they were able to recreate Tupac’s voice to say, “What up, Coachella?”
This raises eyebrows because Tupac was reported dead in 1996 and the Coachella Music Festival started in 1999.
Companies were not able to confirm whether all the vocals were Pac’s or not. The controversy over Pac’s death continues, and believers think that he may still be alive today. However, that’s not what all the critics are hung up on, as more people are asking if this may evolve into a new way of entertainment with concerts leaving fans asking who is next? Elvis? Marilyn Monroe? Biggie Smalls?
Maybe there will be holographic concerts that are realistic and that are more cost-efficient than a live performance.
Many will be following and waiting to see what will be done with this new technology and this new style of performing. Time will tell.