Star Wars in Concert 2009
My brother
and I arrived just slightly before Star Wars in concert began, but luckily we
had time to make it to our seats (which were on the first level and in the
center, towards the back, but good seats) before the lights went down. We also
had a moment for me to purchase one of the concert programs.
Being big
Star Wars fans, my brother and I were very excited to hear about the Star Wars
in concert tour which featured specially arranged versions of music from the
films (arranged by John Williams), accompanied by clips from the films
(specially edited and selected by George Lucas and the editing team at
Lucasfilms Ltd.), played live by a symphony orchestra and choir, with hosting
from Sir Anthony Daniels who played C3PO in the movies.
After the lights went down I think that first they did the
main theme of Star Wars, with some cool lasers going on, and then you could
hear Darth Vader’s breathing, and then James Earl Jones’ voice came out and
made some announcements about the start of the show and introduced our host for
the night - Sir Anthony Daniels. At
first I was sure that he was just going to be there via video as they showed
his picture up on the large screen on stage, but then he actually walked out on
stage! It was so cool to get to see him in person!
For the rest of the concert Sir Anthony Daniels served as
our guide, setting up each of the different pieces of music/film clips and
filling in the gaps in the story. The score and film combinations started off in
Episode I with Anakin’s theme music and then progressed to tell the stories of
the Star Wars films in chronological order (or near that). The music really
helped to emphasize the clips, and the emotions in them, which made the concert
a really emotional experience and a couple of times I teared up.
They had one intermission, during which my brother and I
stayed in our seats and watched various people in costume walk by. We saw a
girl dressed as Leia using a backwards white Snuggie, which was pretty clever.
We also saw a family near us where the dad and two or three kids were all
dressed as characters from the Star Wars Clone Wars series, and the mom had on
a t-shirt that featured the characters her family was dressed as.
During some part of the show, I think when they got to some
piece that had something to do with C3PO, Sir Anthony Daniels started talking
as (quoting) C3PO, and opened his suit coat to reveal he had a gold vest on,
which was cool.
It was especially awesome to see and hear the Cantina Band’s
songs played live, as those songs, the main one particularly, are my favorites
from Episode IV. It was also cool to watch Anthony Daniels as he watched the
clips and listened to the music.
The last song they played, which I think was one of the
celebration songs. Maybe the one that plays at the end of Episode VI? After
that, the crowd response was so intense with applause and cheering that they
did what seemed like an unplanned encore of the Imperial Death March which was
even better than the rendition they did during the show. I think that Sir
Anthony Daniels thanked us and said a goodbye message at the end, and there may
have been another clip from James Earl Jones as Darth Vader, but I’m not
entirely sure.
The orchestra and choir did a beautiful job with the songs,
and the lights and film clips made it an especially magical event.
In the lobby they had some backdrops of locations from the
films that you could take your picture with, along with some hired people in
costumes: an X-Wing pilot, a storm trooper, a sand trooper, a clone trooper,
and Darth Vader (maybe Boba Fett was there too?). They also had some bit of
behind the scenes stuff from the films, but
I don’t think that we saw much, if any of that.
My brother and I went and bought some merchandise. I got a
t-shirt that had the cantina band (Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes) on the
front and their tour dates on the back (most of which had been canceled or postponed,
it’s very entertaining), and a Star Wars in Concert t-shirt. I also got a Darth
Vader mug. My brother got a bag with R2D2 on it and a Star Wars in Concert
baseball cap. He also got our dad a t-shirt with Yoda on it, since he’s our
dad’s favorite character from Star Wars.
We went over to meet Darth Vader and go to see him playing
with a little baby dressed as Yoda, we also saw some other people who wanted to
pose as if Darth Vader was choking them. I got pretty near to meeting him, but
the security wanted us to leave and there was a little kid next to me, so I
told the kid to go ahead and my brother got a picture of me standing nearish to
Darth Vader instead.
It was a super fun concert!