Hans Zimmer’s live show will leave you dumbfounded in ways that no machine-learning model ever could.
Hans Zimmer took the stage at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena on 1 October, and started his show by referencing the musical origins of his homeland. “Germany gets a lot of its music from Bavaria folk music and other parts of the country but, tonight, all of the music we’re going to play is from here,” said the 67-year-old composer and producer. He is, of course, talking about Hollywood and the killer lineup of blockbuster titles he’s soundtracked here.
And so the 20,000 attendees strapped in for an emotional, thrilling rollercoaster ride through Tinseltown’s fantastical universes.
Vocalist Loire Cotler opens the show with a stunning performance of Dune’s House Atreides – more Dune songs are heard later in the show. The remainder of the first act sees the 12-time-Oscar- and 20-time-Grammy-winner and his virtuosic orchestra rally us through Wonder Woman, Man Of Steel, Gladiator and Pirates Of The Caribbean. Zimmer, in a white shirt tucked into blue jeans, floats between synthesizer, guitar, and piano, as his fellow musicians beat drums, plucked and bowed on strings, and bellowed out haunting vocals.
The intensity and emotion each musician puts into the performance is awe-inspiring — instruments played with flair, sparkling costumes and jovial dancing. As fun as it is to watch Zimmer play instruments for his musical masterpieces, the ingenuity of his band is breathtaking as they, too, float between instruments and playing styles.
Between each performance, Zimmer pauses to praise an individual from his multicultured band (assembled of musicians from six continents, plus an all-Ukranian orchestra). He tells tales of meeting cellist Tina Guo and her crucial role in the Wonder Woman soundtrack; how flautist Pedro Eustache would create new brass and woodwind instruments with tools from Home Depot; expresses his love for colleague and longtime friend Harry Gregson-Williams; and set a wooden chair in front of esteemed guitarist Guthrie Govan and stares at him longingly as Govan shredded his way through the Man Of Steel score.
Zimmer even uses Govan’s solo to point out the perceived lack of creativity in modern Hollywood studios: “Every night…the guitar solo is different. No sequel, no remake… Just using your imagination; making something new… I think that’s what’s needed.” The Tinseltown audience cheers.
This sentimental streak continues in the second act. After a dramatic performance of the Dunkirk theme, Zimmer, now changed into pink chinos and a navy t-shirt, shouts out his sound engineer, Colin Pink, who hilariously warps and pitches Zimmer’s voice as he talks — this evolves into Paul’s Dream from Dune, which quickly turns the crowd’s laughter into silence.
But there’s a lot more laughter. Zimmer’s charisma and dry (but warm) humour throughout the show sends chuckles around the stadium. From joking about LA traffic as several latecomers looked for their seats some 12 minutes into the show, to cheekily referencing the poor box office performance of X-Men: Dark Phoenix before erupting into the main theme — “You won’t know this one because none of you came to see it.”
Ultimately, Hans Zimmer Live is a spectacle of human entertainment. In 2024, many producers, artists and musicians have become unnerved by the explosive rise of artificial intelligence and its invasion into their studios. You’ll find machines at Zimmer Live — modular synthesizers, immense lighting rigs, high-resolution screens — but only ones that serve to enhance the organic, incomparable performance that’s only made possible by human musicians.
Generative music platforms might try to ingest our music and regurgitate it back at us. But, as Zimmer and his orchestra prove with not only their playing but the warmth, playfulness and creative connection between them, it’ll be musicians — humans — that create and inspire the next blockbuster hit. If we’re not making music, we’re making the instruments from brass and wood; we’re making the stage from steel and circuitry; and we’re building the stadiums brick by brick and filling them with our friends. If you get the opportunity, we highly recommend you join the crowd.
“You want more!?” asks Zimmer before his finale. The stadium shakes with thunderous applause.
Hans Zimmer Live is currently on tour in North America, with a Europe tour set to take place in 2025. Learn more at hanszimmerlive.com
