{"id":1189,"date":"2008-09-02T18:56:47","date_gmt":"2008-09-03T01:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=1189"},"modified":"2008-09-02T18:56:47","modified_gmt":"2008-09-03T01:56:47","slug":"williams-at-the-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/?p=1189","title":{"rendered":"Williams at the Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/lightsabers2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/alertnerd.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/lightsabers2.jpg\" alt=\"Lightsaber frenzy!\" title=\"lightsabers2\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-1197\" height=260 width=400 \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thanks to good geek pals John Charles and Katherine (they, along with the mighty Chris Stewart, are responsible for my introduction to <em>Spaced<\/em>), I got to spend Saturday night the way every Saturday night should be spent: at the Hollywood Bowl, watching John Williams conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic. There was a sweet little tribute to filmmaker Stanley Donen (he of <em>Singin&#8217; in the Rain<\/em>\/<em>Funny Face<\/em>\/that clip where Fred Astaire dances on the walls that was later used to sell vacuum cleaners fame), but what really makes Williams&#8217; annual jaunt to the Bowl special is the utter joy that ripples through the crowd when he conducts his own compositions. Hearing those soaring scores float over the summer-drenched greenery of the Bowl is enough to remind you of why you liked <em>Star Wars<\/em> in the first place, before it was a hotbed of geek controversy and disappointment. <em>Indiana Jones<\/em>, <em>Superman<\/em>, <em>E.T.<\/em> &#8212; all in there as well, all reminding you of iconic moments in your childhood.<\/p>\n<p>And as soon as the opening notes of The Imperial March rang out, clumps of lightsabers lit up the crowd, bopping along in time to the beat. It was a great moment &#8212; geekily enthusiastic, yet respectful. A fitting tribute to a guy who keeps showing us just how much more powerful music can make a moving picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to good geek pals John Charles and Katherine (they, along with the mighty Chris Stewart, are responsible for my introduction to Spaced), I got to spend Saturday night the way every Saturday night should be spent: at the Hollywood Bowl, watching John Williams conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic. There was a sweet little tribute [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,91],"tags":[325,326,336],"class_list":["post-1189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","category-music","tag-hollywood-bowl","tag-imperial-march","tag-john-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.alertnerd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}