And Then The Giacchino Plays

We Have to Go Back: The LOST Concert 2018

John Anson Ford Theatre

Saturday, September 15, 2018

I had a tough work week, so I still needed to go into work on a Saturday because I missed a Friday deadline.  I then drove to the valley to meet up with Bro and the family.  Bro, V, and I went to Poquito Mas to pick up an early dinner, and ate at Bro's house before we made our way to Studio City.  We parked in a designated lot and took a shuttle to the Ford.  I picked up our tickets at will call, and we got in the long merchandise line, not even knowing what was for sale, but hoping that they were selling a shirt that we saw one of the staff wearing.

Yay!  All 3 of us got the shirt, which had the Dharma symbol on the left pocket area, with a music note in the middle.  We also got CDs of whatever season was available, which were autographed by Michael Giacchino.  They also had autographed pages of the score available for $100.00, but I didn't opt for one.  I was frustrated by the slowness of the snack shop folks, but I was happily able to get a bottle of hard apple cider upstairs near our seats.

All Dressed Up for some experiments

The stage was set against a background with palm trees, and it was a little balmy--a perfect atmosphere for the evening.  When we were in line to get merchandise earlier, we could hear the smoke monster sounds coming from speakers placed in the entrance area.  Up on the stage, there was a memorial with candles, and they used the church hymnal numbers, to keep in theme with the lottery numbers, too.  I love the way everything was set to get us in the mood!  

Stage

Memorial

A pre-show discussion took place, which started with Carlton Cuse, Damon Lindeloff, and Michael Giacchino. Then other people arrived one-by-one onto the stage, interrupting almost every audience member that had gone up to ask a question.  But they were OK with that.  Cast members that joined them:  Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Emilie de Ravin (Claire), Rebecca Mader (Charlotte), Andrea Gabriel (Nadia), and Daniel Dae Kim (Jin).  

Lindeloff, Giacchino, Cuse

Score with Dharma Symbol

Josh Joins

Full Panel

One gal asked the creators to promise there would be no remake; later, a guy asked if they could do a remake of the show.  I wondered if the first person was going to have fisticuffs with the other guy, because they were both quite passionate about the show, as are many fans.  

Andrea, Emilie, Rebecca

Rebecca, Michael, Josh

Josh, Daniel, Carlton

Between songs, if Giacchino himself wasn't talking, Cuseloff (one of the combined names for the duo) or the cast members spoke.  Carlton Cuse talked about the time they were on the sound stage to witness the recording of the music when some of the characters were leaving on the raft they built.  The musicians were reading the music for the first time (as most studio musicians do as part of their job description), Cuseloff was hearing it for the first time, and by the time the music ended, everyone in the room was in tears.  The musicians showed their approval by tapping their instruments.  This is the only series that has Giacchino's name in the scripts, mostly with the phrase "And the Giacchino Plays".  I love that they give this musical genius his due.

I thought it was interesting to hear the actors read the scripts, as they would both sides of the dialogue by themselves, but I loved more the descriptions of what they should be feeling at the time.  The descriptions had a bunch of f-bombs in them, stuff that certainly not be allowed to be spoken in network television, but they got their point across!  

Rebecca and Andrea also read letters that the writers thought the background characters might write when they put them in the bottles on the raft.  This was something they thought up when they had the first LOST concert in Hawaii.  OK, so THAT would have been the perfect place to watch this concert!  Wow.

This guy played for every episode of LOST

See the hymnal numbers on the left side?  108!

Some of the music was played without any film being shown, but there were montages during most of the music.  Unfortunately, the individual pieces were not listed in the program, and I don't remember any of the titles to list here.  It doesn't matter: the music is so beautiful that I cried during the first piece, and during a few other ones, like I did when I watched the series.  But at the end of the show, Giacchino asked if we had cried enough.  I'm pretty sure most of said "no".  He then played (and they showed) the last scene of the finale.  TEARS!!!!!  

For the encore, the orchestra also played another song from LOST, entitled "Tangled Web".  There was no film while they played because Giacchino wasn't sure that they'd have time to include it.  But they did!  Then they treated us to a piece of music they had just recently completed recording: a little taste of "A Bad Time at the Hotel Royale".  It was great!  I was looking forward to seeing the movie anyway, but the music elevated my anticipation for it.

After the show, it was a little too late in the evening for me to want to stay to meet the famous folks, and I was ready to leave.  Jeff G found us and said hi before he left.  Hi, Jeff!  The line to catch the shuttle back to our car didn't take very long, and we were back at Bro's house in no time, which was good, because I still needed to drive home.  

Thank you, Bro and V, for joining me!  Thank you to the creators, cast, the musicians (a few of whom were there to play music for every episode of LOST), and especially to Michael Giacchino for a wonderful show!  It makes me want to see the whole series all over again.

No, Thank YOU!