Apparently, a series of films were made about some sort of war amidst the stars, featuring people, spacecraft, robots, muppets, and, eventually, a metric crapload of CGI.

They also had, by all accounts, pretty good scores.

In England, regular James Bond themed concerts are held, and, here in the states, we sometimes get something like it, with pop symphonic versions of the title songs. Some orchestras also program film music nights, sometimes with science fiction slants or golden age slants, but any way you slice it, these film music concerts amount to the same thing for film music nerds: music that's not close enough to the original versions we hold so dear. Concert suites just don't do it for us, not deep in our core. As pleasant and even rousing as a medley of western movie themes can be, or even a big orchestra working through various Star Trek opening titles, there's an essential element missing for folks like us. The concert versions of these themes are seldom close enough to the original film versions to satisfy us and, frankly, we'd rather hear a rendition of a track like "Battle in the Mutara Nebula" than the "Main Titles."

So imagine my surprise and delight when I attended Star Wars in Concert and felt, many times, like I was listening to my old double LP sets.

The evening opened with a surprisingly faithful version of the opening track of that original Star Wars album. Yes, yes, the closing bars were the drawn out concert arrangement/later years version (sans the solid "buh buh buh buuuhm" ending I always treasured) but it still made me feel like we were in good hands.The ubiquitous Anthony Daniels handled his narration in a suitably Shakespearian mode while jumbled montages of scenes from all 6 films accompanied the musical passages. Over the course of the evening, some of these became a bit jarring to me, as when images from the prequels started appearing just as the rousing brass fanfare section began during "The Asteroid Field"  -- which, by the way, opened with the trills and "Imperial March" that it's supposed to, and not in the dreadful concert version arrangement.

While I would have loved to here more from Empire -- I'd relish a live playing of "Battle in the Snow," for instance -- the selection ended up being pretty fair, with all the films represented. The biggest surprise to me was an unexpected and rather faithful rendition of "The Little People Work." The big show pieces from the prequels were there, like "Duel of the Fates" and "Across the Stars" and such, plus, of course, the "Imperial March" and "Princess Leia's Theme" and, well, the more I think about it, the more there were a bunch of concert arrangement favorites. Like the "Throne Room/End Titles" concert version that closed the show. Oh well. Still, it was great fun to hear a real orchestra play this stuff in an authentic way, sounding like the original recordings we here hold so dear.

Go see it. Go hear it. It's the closest thing you'll ever get in real life to that soundtrack concert you always dreamed about.

So now can we have a Jerry Goldsmith in Concert touring show extravaganza please?

Please?

Anyone?

Hello....?