Hans Zimmer Revealed
29th April 2017
Spark Arena, Auckland, New Zealand.
Review by Kate Taylor. Photography by Doug Peters.
An aural feast was bestowed upon the eager film and orchestral fans at Spark Arena on Saturday night as arguably the most important film composer of our modern time visited Auckland on his Hans Zimmer Revealed tour. Zimmer having the gutsiness and the desire to share his scores with the world in a live setting causing him as he says to “leave his dark windowless room…”then chuckles “…although I’m kind of right back in one.”
For the assembled Zimmerites it was a polite wait in a pretty bare Spark Arena, no huge stage set up; suggesting that the music and Zimmer’s collection of 50 or so musicians, 22 or which are the core of this travelling band, would be enough to look at while being whisked away on an imaginative cinematic journey. To set the scene, instead of house music blaring away, we were cocooned in a soundscape of atmospheric sound effects, clicks and booms; as the crowd dutifully illuminated their phones and replicated Coachella waves of bouncing light as we awaited Zimmer’s arrival. As choir and orchestra moved to take their places on their tiered stage set-up, followed by Zimmer’s regular touring band (he must love saying and reading that…) and then Hans Zimmer himself emerging looking very dapper indeed in his tux and tails, immediately betraying the suave figure he cut in his threads by throwing up an excited fist pump and grinning excitedly at the crowd.
Joyously launching into the themes from Driving Miss Daisy, Zimmer is right into it, front and centre on stage and playing off his fellow musicians, leaning in to grasp some energy from one of his violinists as his plucks the banjo or turning and rocking out with his mate playing the accordion, or smiling benevolently at the front row, pointing out in a sort of welcome to the beaming faces looking up at him. Hans is genuinely loving it as he swaps from the banjo back to the piano, but not before removing his tails, then leaning back on his piano stool, bathed in light as he sways from side to side smiling all the while, occasionally stopping to give us all a cheeky thumbs up as the score swells and the band boils to a finish of the first piece. After that rousing intro, Hans comes to address us directly saying “this whole thing tonight is about playing music for you…getting out and playing music live with the people and friends I’ve been making music with for my entire career. Through the course of tonight, you’ll meet some of the best musicians and some of the best friends a man can have.” Alerting us to “our choir” and “our orchestra” from Auckland and NZ; Zimmer makes an effort to include each of us in the tapestry of the evening and our part that we play in it.
Our evening with Hans is peppered with anecdotes to introduce about how each piece came into being; like chats with the late Tony Scott about creating the Crimson Tide score, or an hour long phone call with Ridley Scott about the aspects that would tell the story of Gladiator to the best effect musically. Geographically we’re blessed to have Lisa Gerrard, the iconic voice behind Dead Can Dance and the Gladiator theme, join us from Melbourne to perform with Zimmer live for the first time since 2000 and exposing Zimmer’s roots in punk as he admits that they haven’t practised it together before spitting with vigour “But fuck it! You’ve got to have adventures!” Moving through the multi layered score; Zimmer is seated wedged between two guitarists, taking his classical guitar style to town as he looks up at Lisa, emoting her way through one of the most iconic pieces of music in modern film. After enrapturing us with the swell of music and virtually feeling the sand-grit of the coliseum under our feet, Zimmer takes another moment to praise Gerrard telling her she looks especially “Gladiatorial tonight”, with Gerrard responding by saying “I’ve only just got here…” with Zimmer deliciously offering, “Lisa, we’ve all only just got here.” which serves as nice stage banter, but also an existential statement that encapsulates many of the ideas that are at play within the films Zimmer has scored.
During the course of the evening with Zimmer we’re treated to sombre movements through pieces from The Thin Red Line and The Da Vinci Code; and to a killer sweep through the Man of Steel score which melts into stings from the Wonder Woman theme from the Batman vs. Superman original soundtrack; and immediately caused a roar of excitement for the coming Amazonian cinematic instalment as the assembled recognised it. Needing no introduction for the next piece, a swathe of orange-red light spilled from the screen behind the players, as the beloved chant from the opening of The Lion King split into the arena, from the very mouth of Lebo M, the original vocalist from the soundtrack recording as jaws dropped in disbelief that he was actually joining us in Auckland as he walked to centre stage followed by his incredibly talented daughter and clasped hands triumphantly with Zimmer. As The Lion King piece came to an end, Zimmer regaled us with a sweet story that Lebo M and Zimmer have a ritual at each show where they embrace and Zimmer links their journey together by saying which city they are in and we feel the chills as Zimmer cries “From Soweto to Auckland!” Zimmer proudly sharing that when they met, Lebo M was working in an L.A. carwash and that Lion King has certainly changed life for a lot of people involved in its creation; and that usually you’ll hear an actor or someone else singing these strains but that tonight “you get the real thing!” Zimmer is a gracious ‘boss’ as he called himself later in the evening, taking time to acknowledge and name as many of his band mates as possible; including the virtuoso guitarist Guthrie Govan, the fierce woman of the strings Tina Guo or the incredible drummer Satnam Ramgotra. Bringing it up a notch we’re treated to a rousing rip through the themes from Pirates of the Caribbean as the stage is washed in the three spectrums of light causing one of the craziest effects of the night as the whole stage and orchestra seem to leap back and forward before our eyes coming to a ruckus crescendo on the high seas and afterwards an interval so we can all reset a bit.
Zimmer relishes being able to live in full rock star mode during the course of the evening and takes us through crowd participation to beat the volume of the Coachella throng and seems pleased with our efforts. Zimmer sways a man demented as his band bubble around him sourcing from each other’s essence as they carve out on their chosen instruments. Then the Christopher Nolan portion of the evening comes to play with an almost twenty minute medley of themes from the three Dark Knight films as Zimmer so sweetly reminds us that “for you, it might have been only three films, but for us it was twelve years of our life”; as Zimmer goes on to speak of the heart-break of finishing The Dark Knight amid the passing of Heath Ledger or the horror of being asked his thoughts on the Aurora Shooting during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises; which was causation for the beautiful choral piece named after the small town that was ravaged by the tragedy; a track which Zimmer states was to “wrap his arms around the families and affected”, with Lisa Gerrad re-joining the stage to add to Aurora. Towards the end Zimmer leans back, a pure column of power from head to foot, smiling and arms aloft. Sensing an end, the assembled are transported far from our seats and into the stratosphere as we’re taken through spinning space on the flights of the Interstellar soundtrack as the screen behind the stage whirls with a warp-speed spacescape and a rising set of points that look like the large organ pipes of a church.
We’re plunged into the darkness of anticipation for the encore everyone was waiting for: the suite from Inception. As Time peels out into the arena there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, as the elements from the evening all thread together in a synaesthesia of light, sound and human emotion and on its finish launched the entire crowd to their feet for the second or possibly third standing ovation of the night before Zimmer came to rest at the front of the stage with his band and friends; racing down the line to high five all of them and then in turn give the most loving ‘air-five’ with the crowd.
Truly an experience for the ages and an absolute privilege to see a talent and creator of this kind share his work in the live setting; if you’ve ever even casually been interested in Zimmer’s work then this is an experience that you need to have for yourself and if I could, I’d relive it over and over again.
Were you there at Spark Arena for this mind blowing musical extravaganza? Or have you seen Hans Zimmer live somewhere else before? Tell us about it in the comments below!
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