A Night of Epic Proportions
By Steven van de Graaf
Last Thursday, after a lengthy journey to Brussels and a Belgian waffle for dinner, the moment I had been waiting for had come; Hans Zimmer on Tour. The critically acclaimed composer behind the scores of The Lion King, Gladiator, Inception, and Interstellar, just to name a few, is currently doing a tour of live shows for the first time ever.
At a quarter past eight sharp, Hans Zimmer walks onto a dark stage, the spotlight centered on him. The whole crowd erupts in applause as he makes his way to the center of the stage. Without saying a word, he sits behind his piano, starts playing, and the crowd falls silent. At first it is just Hans, but a clarinet-player joins in shortly after. As the medley moves on, more musicians from his rag-tag band join in on the fun. The show has started.
As the band continues with their Madagascar medley, a curtain rises to reveal a full orchestra, followed swiftly by a second curtain rising, revealing a stage-wide choir. If we were not convinced yet that the show had started, we definitely are now. Hans Zimmer and friends progress through the score of Crimson Tide (1995), after which Hans takes on the microphone. They were going to play a medley of Gladiator (2000) next, but not before he tells the crowd a little story about how his collaboration with director Ridley Scott came to be. In Hans’ words, after he told his wife that he was going to do a gladiator movie with Ridley, she could only respond with “Oh, you boys”.
This sets the tone for the remainder of the evening, his ensemble playing a variety of medleys, only interrupted by Hans’ stories of their origins and appraisal of various members of his band. After The Da Vinci Code (2000) medley, out of nowhere, the orchestra starts playing “Circle of Life” from The Lion King (1994) as Lebo M. (the original singer of the song) makes his way to the center of the stage. The last medley directly before the intermission was a medley tailored specifically for the cello; Pirates of the Caribbean (2003). After finishing the epic “He’s a Pirate”, the first half of the show was over.
For the second half of the show they played medleys of True Romance (1993), Rain Man (1988), Man of Steel (2013), and The Thin Red Line (1998), interrupted only by Hans’ storytelling, before arriving to the so-called “superhero section of the evening”. The ensemble transformed into a gritty rock-outfit for “The Electro Suite” from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), with nothing-less-than epic drum solos.
After this, it was finally time for The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Starting with “Why So Serious?” and elegantly progressing to “Fear Will Find You”, this gritty, punky medley is the most memorable part of the evening to me. Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy in general are some of my favorite films, but The Dark Knight specifically takes the crown. I must have watched that film at least ten times, if not more. So, to hear the music of these films performed live by the man who composed it, was nothing less than amazing to me.
After the bombastic “superhero section”, Zimmer progressed to the score of Interstellar (2014). The atmosphere they provided with this music really takes one into outer space. Next, Zimmer takes the microphone seemingly for the last time, taking his time to praise everyone from the choir to the orchestra, and of course his band. As he walks off stage, the entire place is filled with the sound of cheering and applause. Some people even started leaving the venue, but power to those who didn’t; Zimmer was not quite done yet. Instead there was still the score of Inception (2010) for dessert, which concluded this night of epic proportions in such a brilliant and peaceful manner.
In sum, the maestro himself took us from the atmosphere of a nuclear submarine with Crimson Tide, to the vast plains of Africa with The Lion King, and from the celestial likes of Interstellar to the dark and gritty world of The Dark Knight. This all, combined with his lovely stories and anecdotes, show only more that Hans Zimmer is not only the composer we need, but also the one we deserve.
Steven van de Graaf, Class of 2017, is a Physics and Mathematics major from Barendrecht, The Netherlands.
