Star Wars in Concert

This weekend was the "Star Wars in Concert" in San Jose:


The concert consists of selected montages created from the Star Wars movie while a symphony plays the music from those scenes. And a prominent character actor who was in all 6 movies narrates the entire saga's story in person.

I loved it. And I was not the only one...

If you love Star Wars, or even just music by John Williams, you owe it to yourself to attend this show. You can find the tour dates here.

If you are going to attend then stop reading here as I am going to spoil a few of the surprises that impressed me:

The opening was beyond brilliant. From behind a curtain, the symphony actually "performed" the THX Sound Test and then the 20th Century Fox theme just like you would hear at the movies. Suddenly the curtain drops and the Star Wars logo appears on the screen while an unlit symphony plays the opening notes. The lights turn on and you are watching the live symphony and Star Wars montage play on screen!

The montages are brilliantly edited and are timed to the music (or rather, the symphony plays synced to the videos). It is amazing how good the prequels look once you edit out all of the bad dialog, annoying secondary characters, retconned storylines, and only show all the bad-ass fight scenes.

When you least expect it, giant fireballs will erupt from the stage. I was in row 12 and the heat felt like someone just opened an oven. I feel sorry for those in rows 1-4.

There is an amazing laser show after intermission. You don't need to have video playing on screen to be visually entertained by this music.

Go to this concert!

The encore is worth the price of admission alone.