It was quite a change from Parousia, we paid the musicians to do exactly what we wanted so there was no longer the constant bickering of the past. My ex-wife Claudine was in charge of the dancers and the choreography. We told them what to do and they did it, a dream come true, at least for me. There was very few rehearsals, we gave the musicians a tape of what it was supposed to sound like, and that was that.

Ger and I wrote the thing. I suggested the “Virtual Reality” theme from something I had read in science magazine about using computers to create new worlds that people could be totally immersed in. My thinking was that we had always been behind the times since we came to LA, so this was a chance to have a cutting edge, timely theme. The premise was simple: a man in a wheel chair, unable to use his arms or legs is given a “second chance” at life to be anything he wants to be, only in a virtual world. Because of time constraints, we had to insert Rap (yuck!) narration to tell the audience what was going on. Everyone but the drummer and the keyboardist had a part in the play.

A second hand wheel chair was purchased. The “Virtual Reality” machine hat was fashioned from an old circular aquarium I had purchased for my turtle (which he soon outgrew) and some christmas tree lights. T-shirts were printed. Costumes bought. We rented a spotlight to help people to focus on the character they were supposed to be paying attention to at the time.

The performance went flawlessly, thanks to help from Rob (props/spotlight) and his girlfriend Lisa (costumes). Claudine had developed costumes that were add on or take off (t-shirts, hats) which made for extremely quick changes. All the props fit on the seat of the wheelchair, so it was easy to roll them on and off stage. After the first performance, we thought people might be confused and were distributed a printed lyric booklet, handed out to every patron.

And in the end, people were confused. This was a great departure from the hair/metal bands that were prevalent at the time. People didn’t know what Virtual Reality was yet so they didn’t get what we were trying to do. All in all the songwriting was second rate in my opinion. Something more akin to a Broadway show then our target audience. Missing was the contributions and criticisms of Robert, Garth, Eric and Barry, which in their absence made the songs too one dimensional. Trying to write Rap, which I hate, was just putting rhyming words to a beat, which I learned later is not what Rap is all about.

We played the show until we ran out of money. Marianne out manager talked to her musical contacts who said the show was interesting, but they “didn’t know what to do with it”. Is it a band? Is it a show? They couldn’t fit it into their neat little compartments. It was by this time the corporate accountants had taken over the music business. The old A&R system was dead. Gerry and I moved on. We started our own record company.