Author: Chris S.

Sort of.

During a personal low period last year, two of my co-workers, Ena and Mark, decided to cheer me up and treat me to this concert, so they bought tickets, which went on sale the week of my low point last year.

Months later, we finally got to go to the concert.

I met Ena, Mark, and Mark’s wife, Margaret, in the lobby of Davies Symphony Hall around a quarter past 7pm.  We had our tickets scanned and we made our way to our seats.  We then checked out the gift shop, where they were playing a John Williams CD, the main theme from Star Wars to be specific.

A while later I went back to my seat, where I heard a single French horn practicing the music from the Desert Chase scene.

He should have practiced more.

We noted that there was going to be an intermission during the concert, which is weird considering that the movie is less than 2 hours long.  I told Mark that my best guess was that the intermission would happen when they started digging for the Well of the Souls.

The scene appeared, Indy stuck his shovel in the ground, and…

I surprised myself, even though I’ve seen the movie so many times, that I got the precise moment of the cut to intermission.

Right before starting the movie again, the orchestra played a piece from… Crystal Skull.  Specifically Mutt’s theme.  I found that a bit odd, frankly.

Of course, watching the movie so many times, I noticed a lot of differences, like a lot of sound effects (gunfire, punches landing, monkey squeaks, spitting, etc.) were missing, and even the voice of Jock was completely different.  Maybe this was a print that was pre-soundtrack and foley recording?

The biggest error I noticed was, unfortunately, during my favorite part of the movie, the Desert Chase.  It started fine, and I actually smiled and started to tear up at how great the music sounded live.  But then I noticed that the music was off, ahead by about 2 seconds, approximately after Indy was shot in the arm.  But then I noticed that the music began to slow down, to a point where it synced up with the scene, about when Indy arrived at Omar’s garage, after running Belloq’s car off the road.

Other than that minor glitch, the rest of the evening’s presentation was great.  I was very aware that the music was live, not just from the orchestra in front of the screen, but just the different sound a live orchestra makes, and the lack of a choir or vocals for certain scenes in the movie.

As the credits rolled, Ena and I began to chat, forgetting that this was a concert, not a movie, and we were shushed by a patron sitting in front of us.

We left the concert hall, said our goodbyes, and I went home.

It was a great performance, aside from the one glitch.