Devils Tower: No Frigging Lasers

Daft Punk, riding the highest wave of popularity in the duo’s history, asked to perform on private land next to Devil’s Tower – the natural rock tower in Wyoming prominently featured in Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”
The show would have incorporated lasers that would illuminate the nation’s first national monument, according to Rapid City Journal.

Reed Robinson, superintendent for Devils Tower National Monument, told the paper the park was approached with the idea by an agency last fall. (However, the agency mentioned in the story is not and has never been associated with Daft Punk so it’s difficult to figure out exactly what happened.) The park officially denied the request Jan. 31.

Robinson said “the group’s agency” was interested in using lighting equipment – maybe lasers – at the base of the 1,300-foot rock tower. The agency apparently hoped the concert would attract as many as 50,000 fans.

“This being a night skies park and a natural park and a sacred site to 24 different tribes, that would be considered sacrilegious and gets into that ‘inappropriate use,’” Robinson told the Rapid City Journal. “And that meant maybe we would have to close portions of the main trail to facilitate this kind of stuff.”

Robinson said the park consulted with six Native American tribes about the proposal, all of which thought it to be a disrespectful use of one of the country’s most sacred Native America sites.

“No event is going to be occurring in Devils Tower,” Robinson said. “Anything that was proposed is a nonstarter, is considered an adverse action according to the National Historic Preservation Act, and goes against the Park Service management approach.”

Rock climbing is allowed on Devils Tower, and there is a nearby golf course.