"Star wars in Concert" - Official Thread

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Is the AOTC end credits sheet music in the SW Vault book JW's sketch or Neufeld's?

[Datameister 2,037]

Gasp! I haven't seen that...I don't have the book. Anyone have an image handy? I'll be able to tell you whether it's an orchestrator's manuscript or Williams' original sketch.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

It's in my closet but I could maybe snap a photo. I was going to attempt JW's autograph on it, but I would feel weird if it wasn't his sketch.

[John Crichton 4]

Also, I must admit that it REALLY annoys me how site after site refers to the exhibit as featuring "pages from John Williams' original hand-written sheet music." They're pages from John Neufeld's original handwritten sheet music, which is a fully orchestrated copy of John Williams' original handwritten sketches. It's a minor quibble, yes, but as far as that part of the exhibit is concerned, one of the few draws for most people would be the fact that they're supposedly seeing something the composer himself penned and touched. And that's simply not the case.

They're just protecting Williams' ghostwriters.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

It says Orch: C.M. Pope at the top.

[Datameister 2,037]

That's fantastic, thanks! Yes, that's Conrad Pope's handwriting. That would have been transferred and fleshed out from a more compact (and messier) sketch.

What's really interesting is that this passage appears to contain the love theme...it's not the start of the actual credits heard in the film. I'm not good enough at imagining exactly what a passage sounds like just based on the sheet music, so I'll put these into Finale when I get a chance and take a listen.

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

the unused finale maybe????

[Diego 21]

Went yesterday to Star Wars in concert, kinda hated it... oh well.

[davros72 1]

Why did you kinda hate it?

[Diego 21]

Why did you kinda hate it?

Well, there are two components to this, and one is not the concert's fault.

The first is a local component, basically this type of event should not be done in Mexico, as it happened with McCartney's concert, it was just a mess. Endless traffic jams, no way to park. No information at all (they close the streets whenever they want for no reason). And say you don't take your car, at the end of the concert when you exit the venue, there's this long line of taxis, only problem is they turn off the meters and they charge whatever they want (completely illegal of course, and in front off the police too). So a Taxi ride which would be like, say $80 with the meter running now costs $400. Busses that normally charge $3 begin to charge $30. On Paul's first concert, I took my car, the concert ended at 12 o clock, I got home at 2:45 am, that's how bad the traffic got and I live like 30 minutes away from where the concert was. On Paul's second concert I had to pay $250 for a Taxi to get me home since it was past midnight and the subway was already closed (not to mention that even if the subway was open it would be rather dangerous). Yesterday for Star Wars I arrived one hour and a half before the concert and even so the parking lot was already full (Mexico just doesn't have the venues for this type of thing). I had to go back home, leave my car and take a cab.

So basically, it's very problematic to go to these things and while I would say it's worth it if you're going to see a God like Paul McCartney, I don't think it was worth it with this. But all that is not the concert fault.

As for the concert itself here's what bothered me:

1. This might also be a mexican thing but I'm not sure. I just didn't care fot the public reactions, everytime a piece started, the whooing, the screaming, the whistling, I mean it's not freaking Metallica. I just don't like that at all in an orchestral concert. There was a point in the middle of Princess Leia's theme where they show her in the gold bikini and everyone started whistiling. The same during the encore, when they did a close up on the woman playing the triangle and again with the whistling. It just seemed vulgar to me. I wasn't expecting a classical concert audience, but come on.

2. The term concert is somewhat misleading, it should be Star Wars experience or something like that, basically you're watching the movies very loudly with the music underneath. The dialog can get very loud, to the point where you can't hear the music. Even worse during Battle of the Heroes (called here A Hero Falls or something), the music gets quite loud and so does the dialog and it ends up just being noise, you can't hear neither. Then again maybe the sound was crap because it's Mexico and the venue sucks. It doesn't help that I don't like the prequels at all and don't want to hear Natalie's Portman terrible fake accent "Our people are dying" or whatever she says while I'm trying to listen to Duel of the Fates.

So I hated the "atmosphere" and couldn't really listen to the music all that well. Another minor thing is I don't like how they scramble everything. I don't want to see stupid Padme dying of a broken heart during Throne Room, or the horrible Coruscant chase during the climax of the Asteroid Field.

Oh and they barely make a passing coment of John Williams.

[artyjeffrey 20]

A few nights ago I attended a performance, and it was very well done.

[Ollie 1,059]

Yes, I too bought the expensive program, plus we got two free blankets with the Star Wars concert logo on them.

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

Expensive??

It was a very sharp dagger. Thankfully i managed to not get stabbed.

The sidde effect is that i dont own a Programme...damn.

[artyjeffrey 20]

Once in a lifetime, man. Once in a lifetime.

Now, I didn't see any blankets...

[Ollie 1,059]

You had to buy the VIP tickets.

[davros72 1]

Went to last night's show in Green Bay. Great time, the orchestra sounded fantastic. I do think the choir was a bit hard to hear during their bits, however, that'd probably be my main complaint about the night, albeit a very minor one. The arrangements were almost all ones I'd heard before, with a few exceptions. A couple of pieces had different or modified endings. The Flag Parade from TPM was extended quite a bit, even more than a previous concert arrangement I'd heard before, I think. It was nice that a couple of times the big screen was focusing on the orchestra itself, not just clips from the movies. A couple of the solos from some pieces were really well done, for instance the violin solo (I think it's a violin) at the end of Princess Leia's Theme from ANH was spot-on in terms of matching the original soundtrack recording. Anthony Daniels was great, it was good to see him in person, even though I thought his narration went just a wee bit "over the top" at times.

I still don't quite get why some guy screamed "YEAAAAHHHHH!" about 3/4 of the way through the Forest Battle Suite. That was a bit odd. But otherwise the crowd reactions were fine.

Overall, an excellent evening of fantastic music!

[King Mark 3,624]

I didn't buy the 30$ program...maybe I should have on hindsight

[BTR1701 59]

Still waiting for a Blu-ray of the whole concert. Lucasfilm really shouldn't miss an opportunity to get more cash out of us.

I saw it in Washington, DC, and I was surprised they were only selling programs, t-shirts and a few baubles at the merchandise table. I would have though they'd have CDs of all the soundtracks on hand as well. What better venue to sell the music than a concert featuring that music?

Seemed like a huge missed opportunity to me.

The orchestra performance is very good, that is reason alone for me to watch this show. I enjoyed it very much.

I agree. The quality of the orchestra was fantastic. Some of the pieces surpassed the OSTs in places.

There's a point in the revised "Throne Room" sequence that forms the End TItles for "Revenge of the Sith", where the trumpets are given that beautiful melodic line and in every recording I've ever heard of it, the sound engineer has inexplicably mixed down the trumpets so they're nearly covered by the rest of the orchestra (even though it's marked ff in the score with a text direction that says "bring out"). This orchestra did it right, with the trumpets soaring over the rest of the orchestra at that point. Brought chills.