The concert set includes most of her biggest
hits — “How Will I Know,” “Saving All My Love
For You,” “I Will Always Love You,” along with
some unexpected rarities, including a cover of
Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” that Houston
first recorded three decades ago.
The show, which was first conceived five years
ago, used a body double along with hundreds
of hours of Houston performances and
extensive CGI synthesizing.
“We created the hologram the same way
they did Carrie Fisher in the ‘Star Wars’ movie
‘Rogue One,’” said Marty Tudor, CEO of BASE
Hologram, which has previously revived
performing versions of dead singers including
Roy Orbison and Maria Callas. “It’s lengthy, it’s
tedious, it’s a big, complicated process, but I
think it worked.”
The ambitious performance is the modest
brainchild of Whitney Houston herself, in at
least one respect.
While on her final European tour, she had
an “unplugged” section of her show, with a
stripped down band and minimal fanfare.
Houston liked that so much that shortly
before her death at age 48 on the eve of the
2012 Grammy Awards, she expressed a desire
to one day do an entire tour that way.
That concept became the model for the
hologram concert.
“This is something that she wanted to do,”
Pat Houston said after the media preview of
the show. “I get very emotional watching this,
because it is so, so close to what she wanted.
The only thing missing is her, physically.”