CyberSphere show investigates link between Dark Side of the Moon and Wizard of Oz

Release Date: 7/16/2004. Expired: 8/28/2004

One of the more persistent legends of rock and roll is that Pink Floyd was somehow influenced by the 1939 classic movie The Wizard of Oz while producing their monster-selling album The Dark Side of the Moon.

The legends insist that the entire album, which has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide, is somehow synchronized with the movie and that the music makes reference to scenes in the movie.

While members of Pink Floyd have consistently denied that it is nothing more than coincidence, rock fans insist that there are moments when the movie and album seem to go together.

To investigate this longtime rumor, the staff of The Renaissance Center’s CyberSphere Digital Theater presents The Dark Side of Oz. The show plays The Dark Side of the Moon along with video from the movie, as well as laser and other visual effects.

The Dark Side of Oz will show Saturdays in July and August. During the three weekends that the Renaissance Players are presenting The Wizard of Oz (July 9-24), the CyberSphere show will begin at 9:15 p.m. and anyone presenting his or her ticket stub from the play will receive a $2 discount on a ticket for the CyberSphere. Tickets for laser shows are $6.

Following the play’s run, The Dark Side of Oz will show at 9 p.m. Saturdays. Ticket stubs from The Wizard of Oz can be used for a discount through the end of August.

Released March 24, 1973, on EMI’s Harvest Records, The Dark Side of the Moon stayed on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart for 591 consecutive weeks, more than 11 years. Altogether it has been on the chart for more than 14 years and remained on one Billboard chart or another for more than 26 years.

The Dark Side of the Moon even appeared on SoundScan’s Top 200 albums of 2002 with more than 417,000 copies sold, by far the oldest album on the chart.

Recorded at Abbey Road studios over several months, The Dark Side of the Moon was a brooding, heavily electronic concept album mostly written by band member Roger Waters and engineered by Alan Parsons. Songs such as Money, Time and Us and Them received considerable airplay as singles, however the four-member band continued to perform the entire album as one piece in live shows.

The CyberSphere Digital Theater is a four-story, domed, interactive venue at The Renaissance Center in Dickson. It houses state-of-the-art starfield and laser projectors, more than a dozen slide, video and effects projectors and a 14,000-watt digital SurroundSound system.

For more information on the CyberSphere, call (615)740-5600.

The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the CyberSphere page for more about Planetarium and Laser Shows or the Home - News page for current and archived press releases.