Saturday's concert was amazing. The first half was basically a tribute to Paramount Pictures. David Newman, conducting, and giving a master class of music composers and their scores. He presented Alan Silvestri's (Forest Gump), Franz Waxman's (Sunset Boulevard), Bernard Herrmann (North by Northwest), and Michael Giacchino (Star Trek Into Darkness) followed by a encore of Lalo Schifrin's theme from Mission Impossible, which brought down the house.
Then it was John Williams turn. If Newman was the history lesson, then John Williams was the elective. The 84 year old John Williams provided the second half of the evening. Where Newman's half the concert was a little over an hour, Williams played for more than an hour and a half. Rock and roll cheers greeted everyone's grandfather as he slowly walked across the stage to the podium and right away went into a rendition of his soundtrack for Hook. Afterwards, without a pause he went directly into his soundtrack for the Spielberg Summer movie The BFG. It was a bit ironic that he would start the concert with two of Steven Spielberg's rare flops. And then, what everyone was waiting for... Williams introduced Star Wars: The Force Awakens, announcing that he had been asked to work on Star Wars VIII, and that he accepted because he didn't want anyone else to write music for the character of Rey, played by Daisy Ridley. After SWTFA (which was accompanied by film clips), Williams then proceeded to play various pieces from various Star Wars movies. The audience replied with cheers and lightsaber salutes. After a healthy selection of Star Wars music, Williams left the stage. The audience was satisfied, but more was yet to come. Coming back onto the stage, he commented on how he was at "the opening of the Harry Potter World at Universal Studios, and me and the orchestra played this piece." He proceeded to take the Hollywood Bowl to Hogwarts and the World of Harry Potter. That was Encore number one, Encore number two was a blast from the past, the first real comic book movie 1978's Superman. This one was especially exciting to me since I wore my Superman t-shirt, hoping to influence the universe to play this. But Williams wasn't done yet, after walking off the stage, pausing for a bit, and walking back on the stage, Williams played the themes from ET. Afterwards, the audience rose to its feet hoping for more but that was enough for Mr. John Williams who feigned that he had to go to sleep and finally left the stage. I don't know how many more appearances Mr. Williams has left in him, but when he comes back next year to the Hollywood Bowl, don't miss it.