Zimmer with “The Disruptive Collective” (photos by John Anderson)
There are legions of Hans Zimmer heads out there. In the packed Moody Center Friday night, fans in jeans chowed on fries, while high-heeled classical music lovers dressed for a night at the orchestra. After all, isn’t symphonic fanciness what one should expect from the German film composer?
Hans Zimmer Live quickly dispelled that notion. Beginning with a Gladiator teaser, led by a dreamy vocal intro by Loire Cotler, a light board rose to reveal yes, a small orchestra, but also Zimmer himself with “The Disruptive Collective,” his hard rock-style touring band. Full of electric cellos and violins and the wildest woodwind player you’ll ever see, their hard-edged enthusiasm for dialing Zimmer’s famous soundtracks up to 11 was charmingly retro, a throwback to in-your-face musical rebrands. Hans Zimmer Live shares DNA with Trans-Siberian Orchestra or even Riverdance in its mission to make classical cool, man. Members of the orchestra – who hailed from Ukraine, Zimmer proudly pointed out – headbanged and shook as if the show was resuscitating the soul of music.
The hard-edged enthusiasm for dialing Zimmer’s famous soundtracks up to 11 was charmingly retro, a throwback to in-your-face musical rebrands.
Zimmer’s wide film repertoire made for constant surprises. Oh yeah, he did the Dunkirk score, I remembered – and the forgotten X-Men prequel Dark Phoenix, which he called out as a “piece of crap” during his performance. He nestled those between sets from better-known works. After “Wonder Woman” cellist Tina Guo shredded the lightning strike theme from that film – probably the only memorable score from DC’s most recent slew of projects – Zimmer then bowed down before her as his “pirate queen,” letting her go wild during a Pirates of the Caribbean suite.
His reverence for his band was in equal opposition to his disdain for the crowd. Zimmer clearly loves the musicians he works with, who he called out by name. He made sure the audience knew about flutist Pedro Eustache’s homemade PVC flutes and antique pipes. But he was just as sure to call out every late arrival or early departure from the first few rows. The first time was hokey but passable. The rest felt pretty cantankerous.
It’s a tone that matched the performance’s first half, where almost oppressively bombastic scores ruled the night. Already heavy themes, like that from Man of Steel – during which two drum kits and two percussion stations shook the entire building – were made more intense with extra jangling and squealing solos from guitarist Guthrie Govan. Zimmer added three bassists to the Dark Knight score, who walked the floor seats before ending on a solid 30 seconds of whomping fuzz that made my ears beg for mercy.
Hans Zimmer and cellist Tina Guo
Relief came later in the second act, when the show veered away from extraneous musical deedley-dees and toward visual theatrics. “Paul’s Dream,” from Dune, opened with cloaked Bene Gesserit dancers in the crowd. The ethereally gorgeous Interstellar theme created magic with a galaxy of disco ball light around the arena, even before aerialist Nina Treiber performed a terrifyingly beautiful silks routine suspended above the stage. Accompanied by operatics from the UT-Austin trained Leah Zeger (who also rocked out with her violin throughout the show), the suite was a gentle highlight of the night.
The closing Lion King section came pretty dang close to usurping that title when Lebo M joined Zimmer onstage to lift spirits with a medley of songs from the 1994 film and its infectious spinoff album, Rhythm of the Pride Lands. Maybe it’s a cheat to have a joyful choir singing buoyant South African-tinged tunes, but it’s a cheat I’ll take.
Zimmer’s encore included a winking nod to his work with James Bond (he scored Daniel Craig’s last outing as the character, No Time to Die) before ending softly with “Time,” from Inception – a wise touch after performing scores that flirted with menacing repetition. The composer captured his sonic range in these last 20 minutes – and proved his place in the soundtrack pantheon.
Hans Zimmer Live
Moody Center
January 31
