Our man in Hollywood, film composer Hans Zimmer, used his concert in the Commerzbank Arena for a declaration of love ("Much prettier than Paris.") To his native city and even forced himself into a uniform jersey.
Such a venture can only work if it is prepared and executed by a master. "Hans Zimmer Live on Tour 2017". A nineteen-member band of top-class soloists will assist film composers and multi-instrumentalists, as well as orchestral musicians and 15 choir voices, a total of over 60 people on stage, countless technical staff and a mega production team on site and in various offices around the World to keep the world tour through the arenas going. Uff. Since it is only too understandable, if one finds in the net identical set lists with the same sequence for the all previous appearances. As a safety anchor for all involved. And then this.
The room, born in Frankfurt in 1957, returns to his hometown, which he left at the age of 12, rediscovers the city in the days leading up to the concert on Friday and throws everything over his head at the Commerzbank Arena after he - initially alone Upright Piano gradually welcomes his band members on stage - to contact the audience soon. "Hello Frankfurter. I am also a Frankfurter ", he rips off his shirt and stands - acclaimed by the people - in a black and white striped uniform jersey on stage. Wow. And our man from Hollywood promises nothing less than the "perfect party".
Room has friends all over the world. A friend he wants the people in the wide round - no idea how many may have been - right at the beginning of the long evening imagine and prefers the "Gladiator" -Medley therefore. Dead Can Dance singer Lisa Gerrard is the special guest. In an opulent yellow robe like a costume movie. Queen Elizabeth as an alien. Zimmer just did not write the music for these two films. Seeing the two presses side by side, that looked very bizarre. Football shirt and flowing robe. With the excellent Indian drummer Satnam Singh Ramgotra, here at the tablas, and the Venezuelan woodwind player Pedro Eustache with the Armenian apricot wood flute Duduk (the most beautiful sound in the world), to Gerrard's extraordinary voice succeeds heartbreaking.
The technique manages to insert the titles on the screens only a few times in the evening due to the upside-down order. Otherwise, you had to be well-proven cineast, to recognize all this, especially to be able to accurately assign to which of the sounds just heard Russell Crowe rode through which scene. So the wish actually came up with some present ones, one could have imported film scene for the orientation. Too much of the good (especially legally probably difficult). The suggestive power of the music should actually be enough. Only except for "The Lion King" with the vocal double top Lebo M. and Refi as easily identifiable as African sounds and the help of Nick Glennie-Smith on the accordion with parrot on the shoulder as an unmistakable reference to the "Pirates Of The Caribbean", the rest could not really be logically assigned. It is not program music à la "pictures of an exhibition" or "Die Moldau".
After all, the task of a film composer is to pick up the moods and atmospheres of the images, to support them, drive them away, counteract them. Without pictures, many things seem abstract and trimmed to effect, the old question arises once more: are such scores (which are just not songs) really suitable for such a stage realization? In the case of Hans Zimmer, without images, they seem like a conglomeration of different set pieces from the classical period (the good Mr Mozart is briefly addressed by Hans Zimmer), world music, Orff's "Carmina Burana", symphonically orchestrated metal and so on. Because the band can be as subtle as it is brutal.
The terrific guitarist Guthrie Govan of the trio The Aristocrats is like no other in the band for both. Beautiful are his slide passages. A true guitar stylist who, among other things, receives support on the strings from Nile Marr, the son of Johnny Marr (The Smiths). Also to be mentioned is the richly grooving bassist Yolanda Charles and the navel free group with violinists Molly Rogers and Leah Zeger and e-cellist Tina Guo, acclaimed by Zimmer as a particularly talented soloist. The Chinese woman may be called: Emphasis is not empathy. Much too set up, her - you can hardly write it - body language, facial expressions and gestures.
Her boss is really empathetic when he talks about the creation of the composition "Auraro", a killing spree in a Colorado movie theater during the performance of "The Dark Knight Rises", and the death of Heath Ledger. Without a word they wanted to react to the tragedies. "The world has not got better since then. We want to put our arms around you, "room, he said, is about demonstrating creative coexistence with this multinational force and showing the world how solidarity people can relate to each other.
While the ensemble acted almost discreetly in the first part before the break and threatened to cover the music raining on the roof of the Commerzbank-Arena, the crew gave in the second part of the evening, in which due to the darkness lightshow and projections were shown to better advantage , right gas. Can one talk about theatrical thunder in the context of film music? Anyway, it was noisier, "electronic", sometimes disharmonic. A real spectacle to the finale, which leaves the audience playing a lot dizzy.
Almost forgotten: there was another surprise guest. Trevor Horn from the British new wave duo The Buggles, which included Hans Zimmer in his time in London, came on stage - with oversized glasses, of course - with his "Big Zim", the mega hit "Video Killed The Radio Star" to perform. Gorgeous gaga. There it was, the promised party, and one could not but wonder that this music recorded for the orchestra and the choir left so much room for improvisation and games, almost like on a big children's birthday party on a world tour.