“Lisa, I don’t think you’ve ever sung this as beautiful as just now. It’s like you need to be here. You are a miracle and I love you with all my heart,” says Hans Zimmer as he looks up to Lisa Gerrard, the Australian singer who famously vocalised his score for Ridley Scott’s 2000 classic, Gladiator.
It’s but one of many moments in which Hans Zimmer demonstrated such deep humility and explicit appreciation – incredibly and woefully rare in live music, where performance is mistaken for authenticity – as his he bought his eponymous live show to Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena.
I’ve seen the man live before. It was in this very stadium where he used a countless orchestra of all types of musicians and instruments to bring to life these soundtracks. Scores that have gone on to define H0llywood, from The Lion King and Inception to Dune and James Bond.
Name a chart-topping blockbuster that wouldn’t be half as viable without its dramatic, multisensory and highly sensitive soundtrack. Hans Zimmer likely had a hand in that. But I’m not here to remind you of his unquestionable credentials in the world of music, but to deepen the appreciation for this man who, through wizardry I’ll never truly understand, is able to bring life to his most famous scores in a way that transcends the typical concert.
Hans Zimmer Live is an immersive, multisensory experience that plays on the mind and teases out the individual memories we’ve each attached to these movies, some which are caked with nostalgia and emotion (like The Lion King) and others that inspire awe and adventure (Pirates of the Caribbean).
Like a beautifully descriptive author, Zimmer’s way of constructing these big, monumental blockbusters brings movies to life in the minds of the listeners. Visuals aren’t necessary but they’re presented anyway, from the spellbinding mirror ball at the top, rapidly spinning so the arena looks like a hurricane of light and shadow, to the way to spotlights dance to each pronounced bang, whizz and burr – best seen during an energetic, highly sophisticated rendition of the classic James Bond theme.
There are almost too many musicians on stage to name, Zimmer in the centre conducting it all, looking on in admiration and pride during solo-spotlight moments and occasionally pulling double-duty on various instruments.
Zimmer’s shanty town is turned into a rock & roll monolith with the Pirates of the Caribbean suite, a loud, boisterous clip that felt like it went on for hours. At other times, strings and woodwind break out to dive deep into the Zimmer catalogue, even fishing out The Last Samurai and Dark Phoenix. The latter, Zimmer admits was a box office flop, but he included it in the set list so he could hear and admire some of life-long friends as they build entire worlds on stage.
You don’t usually expect an intermission at a show in such a large venue. And I question its practicality. But a 20-minute break was necessary to bring some violent tonal shifts to the set, presenting a more quiet and cerebral set in the second half with Dune coming up again and Zimmer’s definitive work for Interstellar positioned beautifully as the heart and soul of the performance.
But it was The Lion King that made the set truly unforgettable. South African Singer Lebo M. – the original singer – led a beautiful display of cultural elation, joyfully painting the stage with colour and soaring over our collective childhood memories to reach the climactic “The Circle of Life.” Tears.
Zimmer was not ashamed to claim that he felt like a rock star on stage. And he sounded like one too. He dipped for a short encore before coming back with No Time To Die, followed expectedly by “Time” from Christopher Nolan’s Inception. The quiet storm, Zimmer’s most poignant and moving piece, ended the show perfectly.
And that’s really all that I can say after this evocative performance from a true master of music. Perfect.
FIVE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Hans Zimmer wraps his Australian tour with one final show in Melbourne on Wednesday 30th April. Tickets are still available and can be purchased from Frontier Touring.
Header image credit: Suzanne Teresa
