We had some booms around here, but it was pretty quiet. Professional displays never did it for me. After a couple hours fighting traffic and crowds and sitting someplace late at night, in the dark, I just wanted to go home.
‘…unfettered view of fireworks on Canada Day’.
I love fireworks - and I love watching them in a crowd and having everyone go “oooo ahhhhh” at the same time. There’s just nothing like it!!
I do still love watching fireworks, but I too haven’t bothered to go out to see them for the past four or five years - too much trouble to put up with big crowds in a big city to see an overblown show (too much of a good thing?) and who the heck needs music with their fireworks?
The old days of small towns putting on fireworks where you could go out in front of your house or to a nearby park with a chair or blanket, and have a minute or two of anticipation between fireworks, and you could hear eveyone go oooh and ahhh, seem to be rapidly disappearing.
The last fireworks show that I saw that was really satisfying was in Bar Harbor Maine where you could sit anywhere along the shore and watch the fireworks over the harbor. I assume/hope they still do this and I look forward to going there again for the 4th. Big city orchestrated nonstop shows do get boring I think. Happy 4th!
At Philadelphia’s show last night which was televised, Peter Frampton was just great, playing the pre-fireworks concert. An amazing performance that took me back to 1976 only it was even better. When the nonstop fireworks began, I tried to watch for a while but the inspirational music soundtrack was so annoying I had to turn it off.
They are more fun if you know what they are & how to use them. They do come out with new ones, which is nice. Here is a link to a firework compan6y & you can design & watch your own show online, free:
http://www.fireworks.com/interactive/fireworks_show/default.asp
I find that my reaction to fireworks is that they stir up memories of things that I’ve done and the people I’ve been with during fireworks displays in the past.
One year I spent the night with some friends on a beach south of Santa Cruz, and it was like a free-fire zone…the scene was one of scores of parties up and down the beach, each with it’s own bonfire, selection of intoxicants, and variety of munitions.
Once, I found myself on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland when the 'works went off–I felt I was reliving a scene in Apocalypse Now!
Around San Francisco, the official fireworks on the 4th are well, blah. Between not spending a boatload of money for them, the fourth of July is typically foggy, so the end effect is pretty colored blobs in the fog.
The good fireworks here are done by KFOG, a local rock station, in May. They call it KA-BOOM! and claim to go to the fireworks manufacturers each year and request something new. There’s a decent slideshow from this year’s show here.
While I certainly won’t go fight traffic and pay admission, and the whole patriotic/festival bit bores me, I’m still immature enough to LOVE EXPLOSIONS!!
When I was living across the street from the university, they’d occasionally have a fireworks display to celebrate a baseball victory or some such event.
I’d be sitting in my apartment playing computer games or something, and suddenly KABLAM… KABLAM KABLAM KABLAM!!! I’d rush outside to watch the show over the trees.
From that distance, I could hear the launch charges going off, then the flashes lit up the buildings all over the apartment complex and the explosions rattled the walls. It was like being in the middle of a multi-colored nuclear Armageddon!
Obviously, your problem is that you’re a Kelly Clarkson fan. 
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=195570
If you don’t care for fireworks avoid Australia at all costs. If more than 20 people gather anywhere in Australia it is an excuse for a firework display. I believe we have the biggest firework display companies in the world, guys who travel all over blowing things up. But first of all they put on display after display here - holidays = fireworks, major football games = fireworks, school fetes = fireworks, any anniversary = fireworks, any opening = fireworks, concerts = fireworks, major sports = fireworks. It’s funny in stadiums when sometimes the display will generate enough smoke to delay the start of the game.
I must admit that now I wouldn’t walk to the window to watch a firework display, I’ve seen enough.
Professional Pyrotechnician calling in here…
Yep. You are Jaded.