Sometimes podcasters leave their couch or their studio for an IRL event.
As specialist podcast audiences have increased their fan bases, the desire to be part of a community during a real life, live on stage podcast has been growing.
In Hobart tonight over 2000 people packed into the MyState Bank Arena to experience a collaborative event between the Art of the Score podcast and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
The two and a half hour concert explored the music of famed film composer Hans Zimmer.
The Art of the Score podcast “explores, demystifies and celebrates some of the greatest soundtracks of all time from the world of film, TV and video games.”
In each episode Andrew Pogson, Dan Golding and Nicholas Buc check out a soundtrack, break down its main themes and explore the composer’s background. Dan Golding also hosts Screen Sounds on ABC Classic.
In this event Andrew Pogson and Dan Golding told stories about the Zimmer’s background, explained his techniques and revealed inside stories from filming of the many movies he composed for. TSO conductor Jessica Gethin was part of the conversation as she led the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in breaking down the music to illustrate the composer’s techniques and inspirations.
Pogson and Golding told the story of how Zimmer composed the soundtrack for The Holiday and built in musical references to another of his compositions, the theme from Driving Miss Daisy.
They revealed how Edit Piaf’s song Non, je ne Regrette Rien (No I Don’t Regret Anything) inspired the theme for Inception, a movie about dreams and regrets.
Other Hans Zimmer works in the concert included The Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean, Interstellar, Batman, Gladiator and Kung Fu Panda.
Acknowledging his high school music teacher, who was in the audience, Pogson thanked him for showing him how to really listen to music. “From what I learnt, now I make my living teaching people how to listen to music,” he said.
The concert even had audience participation, as the crowd sang the words of the old Batman tv show theme and then were shown how Zimmer transformed the old theme into the score for the modern movie version.
“It’s not lyrics, it’s just lyric,” joked Golding as he encouraged the audience to sing the single word in the score of the old TV series: Na na na na, na na na na, Batman.
A standard classical music concert usually has minimal talking and maximum music, but the reinvention of musical performances that align with a podcast is part of the modern podcast landscape. It is part of the fandom experience and the growing trend for listeners to attend live making podcast shows.
Reporting: Steve Ahern