The Tupac Hologram Effect continues: without resurrecting legendary artists, R&B song-and-dance man Usher has some tricks up his sleeve in terms of crowd-pleasing, futuristic concert antics.
The singer will use digital dancers to back him up during his concert at London’s Hammersmith Apollo on June 11. The show will be streamed online on Usher’s VEVO channel, and viewers will get a chance to join him on stage — virtually — during his performance of the song “Scream.”
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“Literally, people will be able to create their own avatar and have it dance on the screen with Usher,” Hamish Hamilton, director of the concert webcast and Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl halftime extravaganza, told The New York Times.
The show is part of the American Express Unstaged series partnering recording artists with high-profile directors — recent pairings include Jack White with Gary Oldman in the director’s chair, and Mary J. Blige with Adam Shankman — and will coincide with the release of his highly-anticipated new album Looking 4 Myself.
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The multimedia company Moment Factory, based in Montreal, is behind the virtual dancing technology.
“They’re feverishly beavering away, trying to put flesh on the bones of this fantastic idea that they said they possibly could do and we all jumped on,” said Hamilton. “They foolishly, in a meeting, said, ‘Yeah, we can do this.’ At which point we went, ‘All right — do it. We’ll see you in two weeks in London.'”