Hans Zimmer @AO Arena, Manchester 16/6/23

Hype is deadly. From experience, when it comes to entertainment at least, I try and live my life with having very little expectations for things and events. It was only last year I had seen Tool for the first time; despite the band being incredibly important to me, my apprehension for seeing them was palpable. To be blunt, I wasn’t really looking forward to it in a lot of ways, but then when I went, the band blew it out of the water. It was one of the best events I’d ever been to. Fast-forward to this year and I’ve been to two events this year – both of which I uncharacteristically had no filter over my excitement for seeing them. One was Darren Hayes – a bitter disappointment that has tarnished his legacy in my eyes – the other was legendary composer Hans Zimmer. While the gig wasn’t the unmitigated disaster of the former, it brought enough frustrations to the table to warrant it being a disappointment of sorts. For context, I relish in most of Zimmer’s extensive catalogue of movie scores; I listen to them as much as I listen to albums from my favourite bands and artists. His ability to keep with the times and reinvent himself with every passing decade is very impressive to behold. Coupled with the fact I’d never seen a live orchestra and the ingredients created something I couldn’t hold back – this was guaranteed to be mind-blowing, there was no way it couldn’t.

By the time I’d walked out of the stadium, the bottom half of my body was numb from sitting there for just over three-and-a-half hours, and I felt mildly deflated from what had transpired. Firstly, the production values from this event were second-to-none: a grand, complex lighting setup with a big LED screen over the band’s head, as well as the images being projected behind them. To the surprise of no one, every member in the band is first class, destroying their area of expertise with panache and delivering a first-rate experience for all who attended. The vocalists were pitch perfect – from Lisa Gerrad’s stunningly emotive performance in Gladiator and Lebo M’s classic delivery for The Lion King, to Molly Rogers’ staggering vocal delivery in the Interstellar and Dark Phoenix chapters. On a technical level, the show was flawless. The titular lead himself, rightfully, holds gravitas in front of his twenty-plus ensemble, bringing a mountain-load of charisma to the crowd with plenty of wit and humour being presented to both the band and the fans, and, at over three hours in length, fans definitely get their money’s worth from the show.

So, where’s the problem? Well, it was ultimately on my own preferences – and for my distaste for the creative decisions being made by the band that somewhat hindered the night. The structure of the setlist was constructed as such: Zimmer picked fifteen films from his repertoire and within those films, generally, Zimmer and co. spliced two-to-four tracks together to make one cohesive epic, clocking in at around ten-or-so-minutes. There were exceptions to the rule (like Dune and Inception, which were split), but on the whole that was the format for the night. Unfortunately, while I can sympathise with the logistical issues in condensing his all-time hits into a setlist that will cater to everyone watching, a lot of the transitions felt either rushed or clunky as they got to the liminal point of the next section of the score. What’s worse is the night got off to a ropey start, opening up with the soporific “House Atreides” (Dune), “Mombassa” (Inception) and Wonder Women triptych. By the time we got halfway through the Wonder Women section, the harsh reality sank into my bones as ennui began to wash over me. At this point in the show, I incredulously sat there mulling over in my head “No, this can’t be! How can I not be blown away by this?” Thankfully, by the time the Man of Steel section bled into the setlist, without the aforementioned transitional hiccups, the rest of the setlist was largely thrilling and engaging to watch.

Another big issue for me was the endless battle between the rock band and the orchestra. One of the reasons I love Hans Zimmer’s work is that organic-colossus dichotomy – percussion mixed with the typical instrumentation you’d find with an orchestra – raw emotion that sounds like planets colliding. As is the running trend here; the renditions were expertly executed but lacked the ability to knock it out of the park. The Man of Steel chapter is a prime example of this – giving cheeky little alterations to the original compositions and delivering the goods. However, by the end point, the song relies solely on the rock sound, dishing out a fret-wanking eighty’s-fuelled Eddie Van Halen solo to climax on. For me, this crushed the momentum and fidelity for the original work initially penned down. Couple that with a lot of pretentious ideas – going off on self-indulgent tangents at the expense of the track – and a lot of moments here get spoiled or hampered at some point. Other minor issues lie in the corny visuals, as the screen projected loads of fading and dated production ideas that felt like a school project made by a kid in the early noughties. For obvious reasons, Zimmer couldn’t use images from the films being played, but the images being shown felt like cheap stock rather than interesting backdrops that marred the spectacle a bit.

All of that being said, when the show was firing on all cylinders, it was electric. The Last Samurai chapter was one I waited for with baited anticipation, and it didn’t disappoint. It was also one of the longer segments here but it was accomplished with such competency, its deluge of poignancy and emotion made it the strongest part of the whole night. Similarly, Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight and Top Gun played their part in making the night worthwhile. Ironically though, next to The Last Samurai, the strongest segment came from the most unlikely of films: the X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Dunkirk amalgam. The abysmal Dark Phoenix was such a baffling choice to me going into it, I couldn’t understand why it was on the setlist. Hell, Zimmer himself brazenly censured the film’s incompetence and affirmed in jest to contact Warner Bros. for a full refund if they went and saw the film before playing the piece. Yet, there is a reason he picked both of those films to go back-to-back, and the spectacle was insane to watch. Even listening back to the two songs on the original scores, or even checking out the live album to this very show, it lacks the chaos and power behind what you experience live. It’s one of those moments that makes the live setting such an essential part of being a fan of music; like when you take a picture of the moon or sun with your phone but it doesn’t capture what the human eye can see. It’s one of those metaphysical life experiences you’ll never capture with technology.

To close up one man’s long-winded ramblings – I think I put too much pressure on my expectations, which amounted to nothing short of perfection. What I got was an epic three-hour-setlist, performed by a crew of world-class virtuosos, playing some of my favourite movie scores. While the rock band section hampered and conflicted with what makes Zimmer’s work so enthralling, it didn’t interrupt everything. Fidelity was given to a large portion of the chapters here, namely The Last Samurai, Gladiator, and No Time to Die, and it’s understandable you’d want to showcase a different facet of these songs to both break up monotony, and to show people how talented the team really is. Some of that did come across as fart smelling, and the jarring transitions hurt the experience at times, but on the whole Hans Zimmer is still at the top of his game and delivering a show you’ll never see anywhere else.   

Score: 3.5/5