Zimmer took the crowd’s breath away with live renderings of his iconic film scores
Hans Zimmer created a symphony of cinematic wonders at CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore on Friday (Feb 7th). The concert was rescheduled from a canceled show in September. Zimmer profusely apologized and explained that he had severe pneumonia. However, the new date means that the DMV region was Zimmer’s final U.S. stop on this tour.
Zimmer took the stage in a jacket with tails and blue jeans, his signature relaxed look belying a musical genius that has put him one award away from an EGOT and earned him a status in pop culture rarely afforded film composers.
The show opened with “Dune: House Atreides,” with vocalizations by Loire Colter, whom Zimmer told the crowd is the voice throughout his iconic Dune film score. Zimmer said the entire on-stage orchestra—rows and rows deep—comprised his own players. I can tell you from attending many orchestral events, that is a rarity for such shows.
Zimmer did not show clips from each film. Instead, he let lighting and light visual motifs accent the work of the massive group of musicians: a green and gray hue for “Mombasa” from Inception, rows of ancient columns and an orange glow for the Gladiator suite, and so on.
Guitarist Guthrie Govan shined in the first act on the Wonder Woman and Man of Steel suites, with hazy blue light bars along the risers seemingly placing him high in the sky as his notes flowed out his fingers and through the air. A superhero of guitar for the superheroes of the screen. Zimmer said that Govan’s solo each night during the DC Universe suites was never the same. That’s 207 solos, all different.
Zimmer also featured longtime string collaborator Tina Gou. She especially wowed on the first of three suites from Pirates of the Caribbean. Also, a multi-instrumentalist named Pedro—I couldn’t catch his last name—played an Armenian wind instrument to kick off the Gladiator portion. “Only in America could that happen,” said Zimmer.
The second half contained suites from The Lion King, the Dark Knight, and Interstellar. For the Lion King portion, Zimmer surprised the crowd with famed South African composer Lebo M. Lebo M is the original vocalist on “Circle of Life” and “He Lives in You,” both of which he sang from the stage.
Zimmer, for his part, toggled throughout the night between a keyboard set-up and a piano. But he was mostly content to let his players have the spotlight. He takes immense pride in their talent and ingenuity as players.
In the second half, for example, he brought Pedro up to show off another wind instrument from a far-off land called “Home Depot.” Constructed of PVC pipe with holes drilled by the Venezuelan virtuoso, the instrument set the tone for three compositions from The Last Samurai.
That ingenuity extended also to how the show was conducted. Zimmer never took a baton himself. Instead, he would discretely trade off those duties with instrument section lead as needed. The attention to that detail was important: don’t distract the crowd with the work of making music. Immerse them in it.
And immerse he did. The full three-hour show was nothing short of breathtaking. Everyone in that room saw, in real-time, the artistry and mastery in the music behind, underneath, and ingrained in the movies. Zimmer fully transported Baltimore into his films. We ran through the jungle with Simba, took a trip of the mind, gazed at the desert, and rode the crashing waves on the mast of Jack Sparrow’s ship—all without leaving the room.
