Concert: Music of John Williams and the Movies

My nerd intake was happily fulfilled this night. The Colorado Symphony Orchestra was having a concert of movie music with John Williams being the focus. The concert was Tuesday but it was actually postponed from a week ago because it was going to be held at the Red Rocks Amphitheater but due to bad weather it got changed to Tuesday at Boettcher Concert Hall which is in downtown Denver.

For a weeknight, it was a pretty great night!

As excited as I was about the concert, I was a little sad because I was really looking forward to listening to the concert at Red Rocks. Mountains, open night sky, and great music. What else could you as for? But it's ok, there will be other concerts at Red Rocks that we will want to go to.

So Tuesday evening I headed to downtown Denver and met David near his work since he is really close to the Theater District. We went to a restaurant called H Burger for dinner where David had been to but did not eat the food. The food was really good. I got a regular burger and a ton of fries while David had their veggie burger with more fries. It wasn't super greasy or too huge so it was money well spent. This is the place where David had a Nutella Marshmallow shake when he was last here. My teeth hurt just looking at the photo he sent me.

After dinner, we just walked around since we had a lot of time to kill. People watching is so interesting downtown, especially at the 16th Street Mall. Unfortunately, it was still a tad warm outside so we ended up at Barnes and Noble to poke around and have a cool beverage.

When the actual time of the concert came, we went in a took our seats which were really close to the stage. I wasn't sure how the acoustics were in the concert hall but, it being a good concert hall, acoustics were good and the percussion and harps did not drown out the rest of the orchestra. They were a little louder than the rest but not by much. It didn't ruin the experience.

The whole concert was fantastic. They opened with the Rocky theme and the awesome part was the conductor actually ran out onto the podium wearing a grey sweatsuit and everything. Then during the piece he actually ran up and down the stairs, training. He was very committed. The music selection was pretty good but I'm still a little confused why they chose Spiderman as something from Danny Elfman. He has done so many more famous pieces. And, funnily, the medley from Downton Abbey when the conductor admitted that it was a TV show and not a movie. It was really, really good though so I didn't care. And I love Downton Abbey.

The night's program

Then after the intermission it was a complete tribute to John Williams and Star Wars. And in spirit the conductor came out in a Yoda costume (mask and all) and shuffled in on his knees! And when he came up to the podium, there was a box that when the conductor actually stood up, it looked like Yoda was standing on the box.

Although, I am not one to condone taking photos during a concert, I didn't mind when David took a few shots (with the flash off). And if you look carefully, he was waving a lightsaber baton. Then just before they started the Imperial March, the conductor took off his mask because he didn't think it was right for Yoda to be conducting music for the Dark Force. I just about died laughing. And what made the whole thing adorable was that there were some kids who were actually cosplaying as Star Wars characters. My geek cup was filled to the brim with geeky happiness.

This was a great first concert to attend. And I definitely plan on attending more if it continues to be this great. I'm not saying that it has to be geeky and all, but the music sure needs to continue to be superb.