drumFunny – percussive comedy & music humor

George Lucas once said he preferred to look at Star Wars as a silent movie, with the beautiful imagery and powerful music telling the story (and with some of his choices of dialogue, who can blame him? ba-ZING!)

But for any Star Wars uber geek, movie music nut, or even a Star Wars newbie (like my girlfriend who amazingly agreed to go with me) that enjoys heavy aural and visual stimulation, Star Wars: In Concert is an absolute home run.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra sits on a giant stage not in a traditional concert hall, but instead a coliseum more used to housing shows for Metallica or the latest Elton John/Billy Joel nostalgic tour. The setup is absolutely encapsulating. Behind the giant stage is a HUGE projection screen and secondary, pixelated projection screens on both sides of the main screen as well as above the symphony. Smoke machines fill the air allowing laser beams to stretch across the arena space like giant green lightsabers. Before the show starts, random droids blips and lightsaber hums can be heard through the stage speakers, very effectively setting the mood.

The show got started as does every Star Wars film – with the 20th Century Fox theme, followed by the unmistakable blue words, “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away …” The main theme hits with thunderous applause from all the lightsaber wielding geeks in the crowd (and myself).

After the opening theme, a pre-recorded Darth Vader voice (recorded by James Earl Jones, no less), introduces the host for the night: Mr Anthony Daniels, aka C-3PO. In the Star Wars legacy, Daniels has the unique privilege of being the only voiced actor in all six Star Wars films (can you say “royalties?”). From this point, Daniels, in his bubbly British accent nearly identical to the one he used for 3PO, tells the story of Star Wars with the introduction of each selected musical piece. As each piece is played, the projector behind the orchestra shows clips spanning each movie as it relates to the music. I was at just the right angle to see the conductor’s monitor, which showed the same visual feed the audience saw except with a color coded bar line that would run left to right across his screen to mark each phrase in the music. This allowed the conductor to keep the symphony in sync with the edited video sequence being played behind them. The pieces played at our particular show were:

1. Main Theme
2. Dual of the Fates
3. Anakin’s Theme
4. The Dune Sea of Tatooine
5. The Flag Parade – aka Pod Race (modified arrangement)
6. Across The Stars
7. Anakin vs. Obi-Wan
8. Imperial March
9. The Astroid Field (modified arrangement)
10. Princes Leia’s theme
11. Luke’s theme
12. Yoda’s Theme
13. Here They Come!
14. Luke and Leia
15. Battle of Endor
16. Vader/Anakin (new piece)
17. Throne Room and Finale
18. Imperial March (encore)

There are a few things that made this really special for me. First: it was great hearing music from Ep. 1, 2, 3 performed live. I’ve seen many symphonies play Star Wars before but rarely have I heard arrangements from the new films. Second: all six movies were treated as the one big story they really are. People harp on which movies they like and dislike, but when it comes down to it, they are all chapters of a larger story. Both the music and video spanned all six and cut back and forth in a way that sowed them together seamlessly. Third: the Dune Sea of Tatooine piece was used to introduce R2-D2 and C-3PO into the story. Up until this point, Anthony Daniels would sit off to the side while the symphony played, but for this particular piece, he stood and watched the screen show clips of his shiny gold alter ego and his bleeping sidekick, R2. Daniels has professed his love for the C-3PO character before, but this night I got to see this with my own eyes.

There are several different ways to view the story of Star Wars. You can view it as the journey of Anakin Skywalker as he transforms into Darth Vader. It can be told as the Emperor’s rise from a Senator of a tiny planet to Dictator of the Galaxy, or you can view it as a heroic story told by two little droids who were there to witness it all (which was, in fact, the original intent of Lucas). So finally, watching Anthony Daniels in his shiny gold vest tell the tale of Star Wars from start to end was like seeing the movies told as they were originally intended.

For this Star Wars fan, this show was a full circle experience that displayed the two most powerful elements of the saga: beautiful visuals with some of the greatest movie music ever composed.

Related Stuff

• Stormtroopers Polishing Cymbals
• Darth Vader Conducts Orchestra
• Star Wars In Concert (Tour Update)