Since my mom likes the SW scores and my dad is the designated driver, they came up with me to La La Land. We got in early and checked into the Best Western that's about a block and a half from the Hollywood Bowl. Since we'd never done the touristy thing of visiting The Official Heart of Hollyweird, i.e. The Lair of the Beast, we decided to walk down there.

It was hotter than Tatooine in July. Whew! Not great for a little stroll. On the way there, we passed a stormtrooper and Gandalf. I wondered what the heck they were doing on a hot day in costume, but I'll get to that in a bit. We went first to the Hollywood and Highland complex, which consists of a bunch of shops and restaurants, the Renaissance hotel, and the Kodak Theater, home of the Oscarzzzz, and more importantly, the American Idol finale. Not surprisingly, there were many Japanese and Korean tourists. After eating lunch, we went to go check out the Chinese Theater next door. On the way there, we found a ton of people dressed in all kinds of movie and character costumes. They'd take pictures with the tourists for tips, apparently. My mom and I took a picture with a guy who was a remarkably good Jack Sparrow. I also saw a Hellraiser guy, a Batman, a Spiderman, and a Minnie Mouse, among others.

Anyway, the plaza outside of the Chinese Theater is, like most things in Hellywood, smaller in person than on t.v. or in the movies. It was crowded, but I found the signatures and footprints of Harrison Ford, Artoo/Threepio/Vader, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Samuel L. Jackson. The most astonishing thing was seeing how small many of the stars of the past were. Natalie Wood couldn't have been more than five feet tall, for example. The real shocker was Jean Harlow. Her footprint was about the size of my hand! Anyone know if she was in "The Terror Of Tinytown?"

We also spent some time looking at the stars on the sidewalk. I noticed that people like Britney Spears and the Olsen twins got stars right outside of Hollywood and Highland, a high traffic area. I suppose if you have the right influence you can get your client's star put in a good area, as opposed to somebody like Erich von Stroheim, whose star is outside of a cheesy souvenir shop.

As a matter of fact, most of the area still consists of cheesy souvenir shops despite attempts to class up the joint with the shopping center or Disney's El Capitan Theater. And people over 60 are like little kids; by the afternoon they're tired and cranky and they need a nap . After getting some excellent lemonade at a smoothies/Boba/weird Japanese concoctions store, we headed back to the hotel.

About 6:30 or so, we walked up to the Hollywood Bowl. The show was sold out and it was quite crowded. There were people picnicking in the parking lot, in the ticket area, or anywhere there was space. For a venue where picnics and tailgate parties are popular, there's a real lack of seating for that purpose. One of the most famous outdoor venues on the East Coast is Wolf Trap near where I used to live in VA, and there was plenty of room for pre-concert picnics. Here, it looked like a bunch of refugees were setting up camp just about everywhere. We didn't bring anything, so we had to buy there ($$$).

I swear I will never buy bench seats again! My parents hated it and I noticed that a few extra-wide folks took up more than their alloted space, meaning you could be crowded out of a seat you paid for! It wasn't comfortable either. The actual seating area is about double the size of Wolf Trap, so we were further back than I would've liked. Nevertheless, we were in the center, at the end of the row, so it wasn't all bad.

The show got rolling on a patriotic note with the Star Spangled Banner, then with Alfred Neumann's 20th Century Fox music. The first half of the show was devoted to other film composers that John Williams likes. I admit I was not familiar with the first few pieces but the L.A. Philharmonic got the job done. The best part of this half of the show was a tribute to Bernard Hermann, who scored most, if not all, of Alfred Hitchcock's films. Williams had a funny anecdote about the time Steven Spielberg met Hermann several years ago. Spielberg was apparently a big soundtrack geek, since he was pretty much a film geek. So he gushed when he met Hermann, who Williams described as a brilliant but grumpy man. When Spielberg told Hermann he was one of his favorites, Hermann said, "If I'm one of your favorites, why do you keep hiring John Williams?" They rolled some clips from Psycho, Vertigo, and North by Northwest along with the music. Cool stuff!

After a 15 minute intermission, Williams came back onstage and this part of the show was entirely devoted to his work. Though there were many great film composers who came before Williams or are contemporaries with Williams, one can see why a soundtrack buff once told me Williams is the Michael Jordan of his field. His stuff just stands out on its own. Here's the playlist:

Hook
Jurassic Park
Memoirs of a Geisha (didn't like the movie, but this sounded good live)
Medley of arrangements from the film version of Fiddler On The Roof
Can You Read My Mind? (Superman)
Superman theme (the stage was lit up in blue and red...it looked way cool)
Lucas/Spielberg tribute (with film clips!):
Jaws
SW Main Theme (scores of people turned on their lightsabers and the place went crazy)
Raiders March
E.T.
Harry Potter
Yoda's Theme (the stage was lit up in green and the lightsabers came back on...you can see John Williams cracking up on the jumbotron)
The Imperial March (oh man...this was the "Freebird" moment of the show and it just devolved into anarchy...people were now running around with lightsabers in the aisles and having mock duels)
NBC News theme (kind of a weird way to end the show, but it was the third or fourth encore and it was the equivalent of playing something weird at a party to get everyone out of there)

What an awesome show! I want to go back next year! I'm okay with three SW selections but perhaps since next year is the 30th anniversary, there will be more! Staying nearby was a smart move, since the traffic getting out of the Bowl was horrendous.