HANS ZIMMER

Indeed you do.

Perhaps because in general ethnic influences done to such extent (though The Lion King if you hear the complete score, is not that riddled with the African choir as it seems to be on the original album, sometimes the African choir plays out like a normal one, partly because of the huge Mozart influence in To Die For/Stampede as you prefer to call it). Mostly African music to that point was about the rhythm and the melodic percussion (marimba?). Of course there was Fenton and his work on that film about Biko, but I don't think the choral presence played such a role in African scores at the moment.

Lebo M. is definitely a huge Zimmer discovery, used also by other composers (Goldsmith on Congo and JNH a couple of times, definitely through his friendship with Hans). And he introduced that kind of South African vocals to Hollywood scoring to large extent.

I'm fairly certain that's what they have lithium for these days.

That said, listening to it now I find Zimmer's work on The Lion King interesting enough but in no way exceptional or groundbreaking. The "Africa clichés" are arguably no worse or better than anything I've heard in any film set in AFrica throughout any decade....but I hear a lot more "Zimmer" than "Africa".

Fair enough. As I said, I don't hear very many clichés in the score part anyway.
I think the songs may have swayed people's opinions a bit (but I filtered them all out).

It's actually interesting to note one difference between The Lion King (and the general Disney approach to music, since Menken at least, I don't know the history too well) and Mulan, which is an amazing score, a final Goldsmith masterpiece if you ask me.

Hans was allowed and actually asked to supervise the whole musical process. So not just he wrote the score, but he was either supervising or, in fact, arranging the songs. The story how Circle of Life came to... life (no pun intended) is particularly interesting and probably everyone knows it already.

It's quiet here... anyone going to the concert in two weeks?

We have tickets but still have to book flight and hotel... oops.
It will be my first time in London, above the ground. I was at St. Pancras and Paddington station with Bregt when we went to Bristol, that's all I've seen!

I'm kidding of course

London's reputation as one of the greatest cities on Earth is not exaggerated. Bloody well tiring though.

I would if I could have afforded it (not only the trip, but the tickets were insanely expensive as well). Fortunately, I'll hear and hopefully see him here in Krakow tomorrow.

It's all very expensive. But a nice opportunity to see London as well.

Has anybody been to any of the concerts in London?

I think Bregje said she'd go?

That's a nice review. I agree with most of it.

Let me just add my two cents. It was a wonderful and crazy evening. As Zimmer said it was a celebration of the collaboration with his musical friends and that was exactly the tone of the evening. Some performances were awesome and the live version really added something to the original, while others were not really that good in my opinion, but were just a huge party on stage and it was nice to be part of it.

The beginning was excellent, starting small with Driving Miss Daisy, Sherlock and Madagascar and the curtains first revealing Zimmer, then the rest of the band, then the chorus. This was a really good start.

Then Crimson Tide, one of my first Zimmer scores. Well, hearing Crimson Tide with chorus was just spine tingling and was very well performed, including electric guitar. It worked really well and I love this live version very much. Despite the bad sound quality of the recordings on YouTube, I've listened to this a couple of times again since I got back home.

The same goes for Angels and Demons 160 BPM. Really good with chorus and a percussive explosion by tireless drummers. For some reason this all had a bit of a heavy metal concert feel to it. Great performance.

Gladiator. Well. Solo vocals are tricky. They either nail it or they don't and I'm often so sensitive about it that most of the time they don't. Let's say I enjoyed the part of the Gladiator suite when no one was singing. It wasn't bad. But it was distracting to me somehow.

The Da Vinci Code Chevalier de Sangreal was really nice. It's a Zimmer piece that Maykel also loves very much. He said to me it was too short and he wondered if they even played the entire piece. They did, but exactly as in the album version. It could have been longer indeed. It was good.

Then Lebo M.’s call from The Lion King let the sun shine instantly. It started promising but in the end it wasn’t good at all. Zimmer sort of apologized by explaining that Lebo M hadn’t performed this since they recorded it 20 years ago! Let’s say I appreciated the friendship on stage but I didn’t enjoy it at all. I did love the choir again, but it was a bit buried under the vocals unfortunately. Just rewatched it on YouTube and I think this piece would have been brilliant without the vocals. Loved the guitar.

Pirates of course. This is just perfect for live performance and I also like to think that Zimmer honored my request of playing Marry Me. Pirate parties are good.


After the intermission the concert continued small again with True Romance, Rain Man and Green Card. Really nice.

Man of Steel was better than I had expected. But while I like it loud, some parts / instruments were so loud I could only see the choir singing but I could not hear them. I hear them better now rewatching on YouTube than in the concert hall.

The Thin Red Line. Really good. Also loved what they did with the lights. Lights were good the entire concert, but this is a good place to mention them.

Then the string quartet was going to play a classical piece, said Zimmer. Yeah right. What’s that clapping rhythm, we all know that song… when Pharrell started singing it was one huge party. Lots of fun. And then they tried Spiderman 2 Electro. Electro is a crazy piece of music, totally nuts but fun and it’s the only suite I’ve played again and again from the Spiderman 2 score. To hear it live was even more bizar and I literally laughed out loud. But they did it, even if it was 'impossible'.

The Dark Knight trilogy never got me or I never got it. Anyway, remarkable to hear by the audiences response this is a favourite of many. I liked the performance and the lights but it sounded all a bit alike to me the entire piece. It was a cool and atmospheric experience but it didn't change my opinion or feelings about the scores.

The final piece was Aurora. Which would of course have been a weird choice as finale, so we knew there would be more. I think one of the coolest bits of the concert was the closed curtains with thundering applause and yelling and already the dreamy sounds of Inception. They really kept it exciting and gave us a good build up before The Dream is Collapsing started. Again explosive percussion in Bombasa (never been a Mombasa fan at all, but I do love percussion) and of course the end was Time. It was much more than I had expected, especially in an encore and it was good. In fact, when I got back home the first thing I watched was the beginning of Inception as soon as it appeared on YouTube.

The YouTube clips are of horrible sound quality obviously but gives an idea of what it was and looked like. There is also an audio-only clip where you can hear the entire concert, including Zimmer’s introductions and story’s about how he got to work on a score or how he met the musicians in his ‘band’. The concert was recorded I believe so perhaps we will get better videos one day.

I had a wonderful night and enjoyed it a lot. Like I said, some music was extraordinary, some was not that good at all. But it was always fun at least. The lights were great. Sound was good, sometimes a bit too loud though, overpowering the choir. It was a joy the see Zimmer play all these instruments and making music with his friends and talking the show together.

The Apollo Theater is a beautiful place. One thing confused me though: while it was a concert with seats (it’s a theatre) people were walking all the time, to get drinks I guess. It’s so weird to see people walk away all the time in the middle of a piece of music!? Our seats were fine, but apparently my eyes are not. Maykel had to tell me that the violinist had different hats on for the different movies! I hadn’t seen that.

Last but not least, I had a lovely London weekend. It was my first time in London, touring the city.
Thanks Hans Zimmer and friends for the concert and the unforgettable weekend.

Rather you than me. I can't stand that song!

Otherwise, as Martijn said, a nice review and very fun to read.

I don't believe that. Maybe for some composers and some movies (it worked well in The Matrix and Tron and Spiderman 2 Electro) but not for film music in general.

Indeed! All kinds of pop/jazz/electronic music were going to take over film music at various decades and the latest fads whatever their longevity will be incorporated, so nothing visionary about Zimmer's comment.