A night at the House

oh SNAP

Australia is known for two things: the native land of kangaroos, koallas and wallabies... and having a kickass opera house.  A couple weekends ago, I got to experience the later.  I figured, since I'm here I might as well see a show.. ya know.  get the whole experience (or something like that).  I went on a tour of the house a couple weeks before that.  pretty cool.  (some interesting facts, history, yada yada yada).  well, after the tour, I went to check out the upcoming shows.. why not?  and saw something I really really wanted to see.  Blue Ocean w/ the sydney symphony (the same dudes from BBC that make Planet Earth).  Sounded like an epic adventure with great scenery footage and awesome sound track..... but I missed it.  So a bit later, I checked out that pamphlet again and BOOM.  Pixar-In-Concert.  How could I miss this opportunity?  so a little background of the Sydney Symphony:  they've been around since the 1930's doin gigs and collaborations with artists and whatnot.  They've done some tv, movie, and video game soundtracks as well.  Some of the popular ones are: Final Fantasy, Star Trek, The Wizard of Oz... and most recently, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  So i'm pretty stoked, and on top of that, the venue was the Concert Hall.
 Lemme explain:  ther'es multiple theaters at the Sydney Opera House.  There's a studio, drama, and some other one that I can't remember.  All those stages are pretty technology heavy and can put on some sweet plays and musical..etc/  In the largest of the barnacles, is the Concert Hall.  This theater is the largest of them all.  featuring a 360 stage, the ceiling is held up by the roof, kinda like a bell..  let that sink in for a second.  ; the sound isn't dampened by the walls.  and to top it off, there are these 'space donuts' in the center to help with sound amplification and prevent any deadspots.  Also this theater was designed where everyone had a good seat without any view obstruction.  This was accomplished by a pretty steep 'stadium seating' arrangement followed by staggering of seats.  The concert hall (and opera house) also took hella monies to build, but has held events such as boxing matches and sumo wrestling (both one-off cases).  This might seem a bit boring, but  it's interesting to me and this is my blog.. so BooYah\!!

da Concert Hall

Alright.. on to the actual show.  Imagine a montage of every pixar movie into 5-7 minute segments.  accompanied by kickass instrumentals.  Bubbly ballads (with 'exotic' instruments) for Finding Nemo.  Upbeat spy music (heavy on the horns) for the Incredibles.  Light-hearted waltz (yep.. bet you didn't think I knew about dem waltzes) for Ratatouille.  Those were my favorites and it was all pretty moving.  For those of you familiar with cinema, you know the soundtrack/ music plays a huge part in setting the mood and ambiance, and it was pretty awesome to see film clips with that extra 'umph' and emotion....  well that's where it got a little complicated with Toy Story 3.  If you haven't seen it, it's not a movie you wanna watch with 'the guys'.  If you have seen it, then you know it tugs rips at the heart strings.  Imagine 'that scene'... you know the one near the end . now add the complex sounds of the symphony (damn you string ensemble... that goes double for the timpani).
Luckily, they finished the concert with the Randy Newman classic : ' You've got a friend in me'...it was a good note to end on.  (see what I did there?).