BRIAN TYLER

One thing that was amazing was that rehearsals for the concert consisted of one 3-hour session with Tyler earlier in the day. Considering how good the orchestra and chorus were, it's very impressive.

Kidding! Just keeping the home crew in suspense!

(Although you DID like the Constantine suite....)

Speak for yourself, but please speak quietly... I have sensory issues.

Same here. The more I've seen of these concerts over the last few years, the less interested I've become in the concert itself, and more interested in all the events and people surrounding it. Hooking up etc.

I mean, a concert is great, especially if you have a close connection to the music or the composer. Heck, I'm sure I could have had a good time at this Tyler concert too, even though I'm no fan. But more and more, I go to these things for the social stuff (and hopefully an interview with composers etc.). And the cheap beer.

I see that the TV BAFTA Awards were held at the Royal Festival Hall tonight. I wonder which celebrity was sat in my seat?

I did find the opening to the Constantine piece - Deo et Patri - rather lovely.

Here's my take of the weekend (as I remember it)

Once I'd arrived in London, and after I had dropped off my bag at the hotel, it was then a hunt to track down Bregt and an exchange of texts then took place. Bregt, Thomas and Mario Schuurmans were at Covent Garden and I took the tube to try and catch them before they left to go to Martijn's hotel. From Russell Square to Covent Garden is only 3 stops but time was of the essence. But I hadn't bargained on the 175 steps down the line at the former station, nor the 195 steps up from the line at the latter station. By the time I reached the guys I was in desperate need for a drink (but that was still some way off). I think that I managed to hide my exhaustion.

We then made our way to the ME London Hotel where Martijn was staying. Entering the hotel at street level we made our way the dedicated lift for the Radio Rooftop Bar - a bar where the occupants of the ME London Hotel have priority. (Note: we later found out that we had walked right past Martijn who was waiting for us to arrive.) We were greeted at the lift by someone who checked that we were meant to be there and then we were whisked up to the bar. There to meet us was another 'check-in' person who showed us to a seat whilst we waited for everyone else to arrive.

Martijn, Mario, Thomas, Bregt, Bregje, Ant - along with one of Ant's friends who he hadn't seen for a while - had a relaxing time chatting about all sorts of things, taking in a panorama view of the London skyline and people watching the bar's clientele: quite an interesting exercise. Beer and cocktails were consumed and I was particularly impressed by Ant's consumption of twice as much alcohol as everyone else. Light lunches were eaten in the warm - sometimes hot - weather. I particularly enjoyed by French toast, bacon & maple syrup and was especially impressed by Bregt's avocado poached egg...thing.

The bar was definitely a place for people to be and be seen. So much so that, once out allotted time was up out on the 'sun terrace' we were asked to move inside so that others could be put on show. By the time we moved back in, Bregt was in some sort of sugar overload after his consumption of fruit-flavoured cider and a large strawberry sundae (in his defence, he had been led to the dark side (or perhaps the 'sweet side') by Ant.

After about 3 hours we left the bar and Martijn gave us a tour of the hotel's public spaces. Dark marble and low lighting appeared to the main theme in spaces such as areas where you wait for the lifts and the toilets but the hotel's lobby needs to be seen to believed. I've looked but no photo I can find can do the place justice. The reception's atrium seemed to run the height of the building coming together like an elongated pyramid to an apex of steel and glass that opened to the sky. It was breathtaking!

We then moved on to the curry house where the evening meal had been booked to take place. I think that about 18 people eventually made up our group - one table of 15 and one of 3! The layout of the place meant that talking to everyone was difficult but I'll mention Jon, James and Jim as the people here that I had met before and it was good to meet again. (Sorry for anyone who I talked to but omitted here: sometimes it was difficult to catch names.)

Masses of food was consumed and the customary lager (Kingfisher) was imbibed to a moderate level. The food definitely filled a hole to keep me going through the concert. As the day progressed, I think that the proportion of the conversation that centred around film music progressively increased and a lot of us theorised as to what would be featured in the concert, with little snippets of information ('facts' would be too a strong a word) being added to add some teases for the event ahead.

To the concert itself. (for those scrolling down to get to the bit about the music)

Martijn has already given quite a detailed account of the concert itself so I don't want to repeat much of what he said. I was pleased to see that auditorium was quite full - from what I say, there wasn't that many empty seats. It was nice to look around the people nearby and see familiar faces dotted about: James in the row in front of me and Jon a few more rows in front of James, and Martijn and Bregje in the row behind me.

A 90-piece orchestra and 80-piece choir were responsible for showing off Tyler's music - and they did a damn good job! I love Tyler's action scoring style - with its emphasis on rhythm and strong percussive elements and there was plenty of that. Lots of hoped-for highlights appeared - Iron Man 3, Thor and TMNT were excellent, particularly the latter part where I thought that the orchestra and choir shone. It was great to hear something from Children of Dune - 'Inama Nushif' was well done with the vocalist doing a really good job (though her voice was drowned out a bit in parts) and 'Summon The Worms' (I think) was excellent. (Martijn, I remember it differently from you in that Lola Marsh was the one in the red dress. How could you not remember that Letzler was in THAT black dress!!) I was disappointed that Timeline was not represented though.

Tyler's conducting was mesmerising and was something I spent most of the time watching. He's definitely a conductor who uses his whole body to conduct it seems, with the baton just being a final extension to his body's movements. His use of a click track was - as I said in an earlier post - a bit distracting, particularly in the quieter moments. But, being Tyler, these quieter moments were few and far between.

It was good to hear some music from Tyler's upcoming Now You See Me 2 score and I look forward to that one in the near future. Tyler's rendition was excellent. Williams' Superman march is such an iconic piece and everyone knows it really well. I'm a stickler for liking recreations of what I am familiar with on CD and I thought that Tyler nailed the version I am familiar with. This may have been my first Williams piece heard live by me and it was another highlight.

As Martijn said, the concert lasted about 2 hours in total (excluding the intermission). It was disappointing that there was no encore and I would like to think that the 3-4 minute standing ovation Tyler received at the end was because of how much everyone enjoyed the concert and not because everyone was waiting for Tyler to take to the podium for one final time to conduct an encore! Tyler seemed to thoroughly enjoy the whole experience of the concert and it was touching to know that his parents were in the audience to experience this with him. I look forward to hearing Tyler's own thoughts on the evening over the coming days on social media. And, since cameras were there filming the concert, I am hoping Tyler will upload some clips at some point.

Once the concert was over, and we had all voiced our opinions on the concert, we entered that 'what are we going to do now' phase. I knew that Gareth Hughes was going to go to the stage door on the off chance that Tyler would come out and Jon also went off to the stage door. For me, I was tempted to go too but I elected to head off with the remainder of the group for drink (or two). Unfortunately, James had to shoot off since he had a 3-hour car journey home.

So, after the 'what are we going to do now' phase, we entered the 'where are we going to go' phase. We decided that we'd just go to the first place we found - the 1882 Caffe Vergnano which was right across from the exit we used to leave the RFH. We didn't know then how lucky that choice was! The time was probably just after 10pm.

Over the course of then next couple of hours about a dozen of us (though there were a few people that I did not recognise) had a couple of drinks. At my end of the table there was some serious film music discussions going on. There was a decent selection of bottled beers - I went for the Hacker-Pschorr Hefe Weiss which went down a treat. As Bregt, Thomas, Mario, Bregje and I were staying at the same hotel we all left together (at midnight, and - as Martijn relates - about 5 minutes after Martijn). Once out of the bar we didn't really know which way to go to get a taxi. Left would take is back towards the Thames (and in the direction of the hotel), right, we didn't really know but we could see a main road (and Waterloo station was in that direction). Luckily for us, heading right also took us past the stage door and it was then that we saw Tyler standing with a very small group of people, signing things and posing for photos. So, we got to meet up with Tyler for photos and a chat. Gareth was still there and I got the impression that we arrived not long after Tyler came out from the RFH. I don't think we could have timed it any better! The composer gave us as much of his time as we wanted and, as is often the case, when he was told his car was waiting, he made sure that everyone had everything that they wanted and then he was off. That was the end of the evening.

For those interested in the interactions of our little group, on the Sunday morning, we five from the Arriva Hotel headed off for a spot of breakfast - pastries, cake, coffee/tea, toast and some of the most unappetising-looking marmalade I have seen. Then it was time for more culture - this time not of the musical kind. Off to the British Museum we headed. I don't think that any of us had been there before. It's a vast place so we headed off to the Egyptian sections and we had a good look around. After this bit of culture, midday was approaching and our little group began to split up. Bregje and I had to go to catch our train/plane home but Mario, Thomas and Bregt headed off to the Tower of London to meet up with Ant for more sightseeing and a spot of lunch.

I hope that I've covered the trip with a bit of detail of the couple of days. Any questions?

Oh, and I forgot to mention, Bregt handed out a few more kazoos to MainTitles members how had not yet received one. So, I got one and Jon got one too. I am sure that a few more were handed out. Someone else who I know received the coveted kazoo was Brian Tyler. I am sure he was a bit bewildered being handed one but I hope that he will hang on to it. In the taxi back to the hotel after the concert, we all encouraged Bregt to follow up with Tyler via social media, explaining the significance of the item he was given.

Ah, well, the fact that I can't tell them apart speaks volumes about the quality of that programme's output.

Yeah, how was the concert?

Oh yes. I barely got to talk to James and Jon unfortunately, but I was very glad to finally meet Jon!

More later! But it was another very enjoyable weekend.

I KEEP on inviting Stavi, but she never joins.

Great work guys, excellent reports, love it.

It did. I plan to do this again around, say, 2026, when I've finally been able to save up again.
Yet is obviously still was a lot cheaper than the bar bill would have come to had you BEEN present...

Be careful what you wish for. I gather that Mario will create a separate topic to share all HIS photos, and he kinda seems to be into the whole "full life documentation" thing, so we're looking at roughly 7200 photos all in all...