Star Wars in Concert

About 3 weeks back I had a call late Friday afternoon from my friend Jason. He was asking what I was doing that night. A bit of a strange request since he lives in San Diego with his wife and daughter. It being an average Friday, nothing.

He had tickets to see the Music of Star Wars in Concert. Would I like to go? YES! He'd meet me at the Honda Center in Anaheim at 7:30 pm. Cool. I knew the traffic would be bad, so I left around 5:30. It took him probably less time for him to get from La Jolla than it did me to get the 40 miles from North Hollywood to Anaheim.

Jason was late. Me, always early, was outside the arena when the first familiar chords of the theme started. This music is part of my favorite movie. Really one of the first times as a kid I noticed acting as a job. To get paid to do that would be awesome. Still would be awesome!

These chords make my heart pound in my chest, and the hair stand up on the back of my neck. It's a visceral thing. Then the next song was from Episode one. It had the chorus for Darth Maul. I really wanted to be inside there. I could see a tiny bit of the screen thru the curtains. Bright flashes of light and color that accompanied the music.

Jason showed up and we went in. We missed 2 songs. Anthony Daniels, the actor who played C3PO was the narrator. The music was compiled into selections that would highlight a character or specific movie of the 6 Star Wars movies. It was really well crafted. And very fun. In the lobby were props and costumes from the 6 movies. It was cool to see. I expected to run into my friend Reno, who knows almost everything about Star Wars (but I can occassionally still stump him.), and his dad, Howard. They were not there. Reno would have loved it. And corrected the mistakes...

It was a neat show. But it made me realize, this is our classical music now. This is Peter and the Wolf. This is the music of Prokofiev that goes with the narration. But the narration is flashing light on a screen. Does anyone write symphonies anymore? I think the people with that kind of talent for storytelling are doing movie scores.