Friday night I was fortunate enough to see Star Wars In Concert and let me tell you;

IT. WAS. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The show was scheduled to start at 8 pm at ARCO Arena in Sacramento, California, so my mom and I arrived around 5:45 or so. The doors opened just after 6 pm and everybody headed to see the Archive exhibit. Most of the items were costumes, like an Imperial Officer and Nemodian soldier, but they did have a few guns and some helmets. I saw 3PO and Boba Fett and a couple of Jedi masters, Kit Fisto and Plo Koon. Darth Vader's costume was there, but somehow I missed it. One negative thing about the Archive display was that it was in a section of the Stadium concourse, which made the display a little crowded and noisy. I liked the Archive display at CIV, which was in its own room, and therefore was a lot quieter. But I can't complain too much. The other thing was the exhibit was closed after the show, which really sucked. I ran into a couple of people who couldn't find where the exhibit was and didn't get a chance to see it. They should have had some directions for the exhibit.

Once I saw the Archive display, I went to my seat, which had a pretty good view of the stage. The only negative was I was high enough that a speaker set was hanging in a way that blocked part of the screen. I wasn't really there for the screen images; I was there to listen to the orchestra play the songs. Which brings me to the main part of the show that I came for, the music.

The concert was amazing. To hear all the songs that we know and love from a live orchestra, timed with footage from the six movies that go along with the theme, all introduced by our favorite protocol droid, C3-PO, or more commonly known as Anthony Daniels. Having the orchestra live, instead of hearing it on tape or video allowed you to hear subtilties in the music that's hard to hear when watching the movie.

They did some things with the video clips that I thought were interesting and really cool. When they showed flashback scenes, they used a blurry edge effect and changed the picture to sepia tones. They also did something with Yoda that was really cool. There was talk about the putting the digital version of Yoda on the Episode 1 Yoda and there is a clip where it is really obvious that they did that. I thought it looked really good and didn't change the look of the film too much. It would be interesting to see the actual movie with that version of Yoda.

Anthony Daniels' narration was really good. He introduced the themes of the individual songs. He defiantly had a stage presence and knew how to communicate with a large audience. It was enjoyable to see him discuss the themes of our favorite saga.

Overall, I thought the concert was excellent. There were some minor annoyances with the venue, but those didn't take away from the experience. If you are able to go see this, I highly recommend it. A sign that Star Wars is still going, there were a ton of families that attended the event, which meant there were a lot of young kids, some of them may have been too young to sit through a 2-hour concert, but it was cool to see all the kids dressed up as Luke and Leia, or had a Vader mask or Clone trooper costume.

I had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the show. I'm so glad they decided to tour the US and not leave the show in the UK. Here's my pictures from the event, enjoy.

Thanks for reading my review and Remember, The Force Will Be With You, Always.