- This topic has 39 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 6 months, 3 weeks ago by
.
- Posts
Holy crap!
As if September and October weren’t already busy enough with awesome film music events, now THIS!:
http://life.royalalberthall.com/2013/02/danny-elfmans-music-from-the-films-of-tim-burton/
A concert of Elfman’s music with the man himself present — AND SINGING for the first time in 18 years!
God, how I want to go. I don’t know how I’ll be able to afford or make schedules meet with all the other stuff I’ve already booked, but I have to try.
Finally, a concert I can geographically attend ! I’ll probably be there !
EDIT : I just realized it was selling today ! I took my seats. I can’t wait.
I’ll probably meet up with fellow french elfmaners on Monday, we could organize a meet up !
I got my ticket too, although I’ve been at work, so by the time I got home the best seats were taken.
I’m on the floor, 10 rows from the stage (A 10).
boingomusic Wrote:
> Why not do both, Ryan ? I heard London is
> beautifully rainy this time of yearI wish I could, unfortunately a trip from Toronto to London is hardly an inexpensive jaunt
No, I haven’t received my tickets, but the lady on the phone said we only get a confirmation e-mail, and the tickets will be sent out way later (in several months I think)…
A nice and lengthy interview. At the end he discusses his concert.
“…once again I’ve gotta go back, that’s my job for the next couple months is I’ve got to sift through all those scores and create some suites, because I’ve got to figure out what we’re going to play.
This time I’m going to go even deeper, because on the records I just had to listen to everything and re-organise tracks and sometimes take a few mixes or something, but here I’m going to open up the original scores and go back and reconstruct pieces and/or elaborate on them. So it’s really going back! I’m going to be potentially creating suites for Pee Wee and Batman and Beetlejuice that probably don’t exist…”
New Added Dates and Details:
8 October: 7.30pm First Direct Arena Leeds http://www.firstdirectarena.com
9 October: 7.30pm The SSE Hydro Glasgow http://www.thehydro.com
10 October: 7.30pm The NIA Arena, Birmingham http://www.thenia.co.uk
Exclusive special guest performance by four-time Oscar-nominee Danny Elfman,who, as well as playing various instruments, will be making his first public singing performance in 18 years.
If I’d known the extra dates, I would have gone to Glasgow instead of London. I’ve always wanted to visit Scotland (and Glasgow + Edinburgh). Oh well.
Finally bit the bullet and booked my ticket for the Glasgow concert. I could’t really say no to the massively reduced price. Excited doesn’t begin to cover it. Looking forward to hearing impressions of the London concert and getting a taster of what to expect!
So, here’s a review of the concert.
It might be full of typos, since I’m writing this on an iPhone. I hope it will all make sense.The concert was everything I had hope for. The new arrangements were really clever and nice. The orchestra played beautifully. The choir was phenomenal. There was a real organ, and a theremin as well.
We got to see Elfman perform, as well as Helena Bonham Carter. Tim Burton was there too.
Most of the suites had newly written intros and outros.It started all with Charlie And the Chocolate Factory, along with some images of ALL the burton films.
There was a Theremin soloist, and this made the whole piece really interesting. The orchestra was fantastic.
The piece was pretty similar to the original one.Then, Pee Wee. The whole piece was re-orchestrated and rearranged. A masterpiece. We could really tell Danny had taken time to rework the piece with all the musical experience he’s gained through the years.
Beetlejuice was dynamic and fun. The day-o part from the beginning of the main titles was sung by a male choir, which made it dark and funny at the same time. Here again, the new arrangement was really nice. Both the main theme and the “grave” theme were there.
Sleepy Hollow : with a young boy soloist, the whole choir, and a real organ. The new arrangement was a mix between the young Ichabod theme and the end titles.
Very dark and powerful.Mars Attacks was fun, again with the theremin. We heard the Main Titles, pretty similar to the original piece.
Big fish was almost fully rewritten. All the themes were represented, but in new orchestrations. The violin was very present. Even Jenny’s theme was played by a piano dubbed by a country-like violin. Very interesting and fresh.
Batman/Batman returns started with the original main titles, then faded into Descent into Mystery, and Up to the Cathedral. Very big and powerful. With organ and chorus. The Joker’s waltz was enhanced. We then heard the penguin’s theme, followed by Selina’s theme. There were tiny parts of the Batman returns main titles as well. The whole piece ended with the grand Batman 1 finale.
After the interval :
Planet Of The Apes : they got away pretty good with the main titles. I was really worried about how they’d do it. There were some recorded samples, but a lot of the percussions were played live. The only problem is that they were too loud and we sometimes couldn’t hear the rest of the orchestra properly.
Corpse Bride was beautiful. The Victors Piano Solo finally got an ending. A beautiful, technically complex pianistic ending (a la Serenada Schizophrana).
Then, they played the wedding song, sung by the choir. It was nice, but I was hoping we’d get some jazzy tunes instead. Richard Kraft told me later that it would have been complicated playing the jazz tunes because they would have needed more musicians.Dark Shadows was very impressive. The sad theme, and the main theme were here, and it was loud, dynamic and GOOD!
Frankenweenie was nice. The synchronization between the images and the music was clever, but for some reason, I’ve never been a big fan of this score.
Then, at this moment, the orchestra was supposed to start playing Nightmare Before Chrismas (according to the beautiful program booklet) but they played Edward Scissorhands instead. For a moment, I thought Elfman had given up singing… But hopefully that wasn’t the case.
So, Edward Scissorhands was a very touching moment. Main titles, followed by the storytelling theme, some suburbia theme, and a wonderfully extended Edward Barber theme on the violin. That part was a real treat. It ended up with the ice dance, along with images of Kim under the snow. Beautiful.Then, Nightmare Before Christmas started :
The main titles, first. Then Elfman arrived and did Jacks Lament, and “something’s up with jack”.
Helena Bonhan Carter showed up and charmingly sang Sally’s song while Danny was seating in a chair in front of the audience, watching her.
Than, he sang “poor jack”. All this songs were arranged in a very smooth way, fading into one another. Christmas Montage was played at some point as well.
Danny’s interpretation was wonderful. I can’t see why he was so concerned. It was outstanding. I’d say it was even better than the originals. He really got into the interpretation and it was unbelievable.Then, the orchestra played the Alice in wonderland Ouverture (with lyrics).
After that, Elfman came back for an Encore. He talked to the public thanked us, and said this was probably the best moment of his life.
He took the microphone, and started singing Oogie Boogie song, while moving and dancing like he used to in the old Mystic Knights times.
A few times, he was going to walk in front of the stage but didn’t. It felt like his old Boingo reflexes were coming back.
His rendition of the song sounded like his version of Minnie The Moocher in Forbidden Zone, along with all the moves. it was outstanding!!!!
He seemed kind of shy in the beginning of his first song, but at the end, he looked amazingly comfortable in this very last song. Even the conductor John Mauceri put his Santa hat on, and sang the Santa Claus parts.After that, Tim Burton joined him on stage, with Helena Bonham Carter, and John Mauceri, and they said goodbye to the audience.
At the end of the concert, a lot of people waited (for a loooong time), and got to see John Mauceri, Richard Kraft and Danny Elfman. The three of them took time to sign, take pictures and talk with each and everyone. They were very nice and thankful.
Of course, filming and taking pictures were forbidden. But of course, pretty much everybody filmed parts of the show and took pictures. So, I guess you’ll end up seeing stuff on YouTube.
Can’t wait to hear about the next shows.
Wow it seems like the concert was “MINDBLOWING” going off of boingomusic’s review . I only wish I was able to go to one, but can’t unfortunately. For those who are going please shake Elfman’s hand for me and for those who are unable to come. I really hope this gets a CD release I would love to hear the new arrangments Elfman made.
I was hoping it would be recorded. Since the Albert Hall is really magnificent and it’s acoustic is amazing. But sadly, I didn’t see any camera.
It was amazing. Just amazing. The suites were very well constructed (it never missed any major parts from the scores), fantastically performed by the orchestra, with only few minor mistakes. Hearing these wonderful pieces of music performed in such a respectful and energetic way was already worth five times the price of the ticket. Batman, Mars Attacks ! and Edward were beyond words. As expected, Planet of the Apes was the score that suffered the most the live treatment; the performance was still good though, with a recoded track to support the live performers. The themerin appearances were nicely staged, the concert beginning with a short solo that made everyone laughed.
Then Danny Elfman arrived…
He was perfect, conveying so much energy and emotions. I was wondering how he would perform the songs on stage, being the first time it happened, with a live Orchestra in his back and 5000 persons in front of him, but I can say that he won the crowd after the first lines. He sung way more songs I would have imagined; basically every Jack Skellington songs. We even had the surprise to see Helena Bonham Carter on stage for a brief Sally’s Song that she managed to pull through the best she could under the circumstances. The last song was another surprise, Oogie Boogie’s one, to which Elfman even danced and with John Mauceri as Santa, wearing a red Santa hat.
It finished with Elfman, Burton and Bonham Carter on stage, for a hell of a ovation (which Elfman even filmed with his smartphone at one point).
Elfman said “Thank you for offering me what is now the greatest moment of my life”. Whether it was true or he was just being nice, I don’t care; it certainly was for me one of those magical moments that only happen once in a lifetime.
I can die now…
Update : great overview boingomusic ! PeeWee’s suite was indeed quite spectacular, giving a glimpse of what it would sound if Elfman had composed it this year. It might be interesting to know that quite a few of the suites were based on end credits, which somehow make sense as they were not intended to work with images in the first place.
Here’s my attempt to a setlist : http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/danny-elfman/2013/royal-albert-hall-london-england-1bc7c11c.html Don’t hesitate to correct it (I can’t remember if Oogie Boogi’s was befor or after Alice).
Again, a great night !PS : I was in the loggia that was right below Burton’s. Where were you boingomusic ?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.