In ‘Hans Zimmer Revealed,’ the Veteran Film Score Composer Kicks Off His Concert Tour and Warms Up for Coachella
It was not a fluke or any sort of stunt casting that landed film composer Hans Zimmer a starring slot this weekend and next at The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival — arbiter of all that is hip. While the paunchy, 59-year-old Zimmer doesn’t fit the rock-star paradigm in almost any sense, he is a hero to Millennials whose worship of him was in evidence Friday night at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, where he played his first-ever full-scale American concert after a lifetime in the music and movie business.
“It took 30 years for me to get out of my dark windowless room,” he joked as he kicked off a three-hour review of his best-known work and favorite movie-making stories — the start of a world tour titled Hans Zimmer Revealed, which includes pieces from Gladiator, The Da Vinci Code, The Dark Knight, Man of Steel and many more.
The 7,100-seat Microsoft was sold out — much of the audience comprised of fans in their 20s and early 30s, raising their fists in time with every guitar flourish, while hoisting their phones to capture it all on video. Their enthusiasm was also apparent at the merchandise stand, where the lines were long for $50 shirts bearing a “Z” across the chest in the familiar style of Superman’s “S.”
What accounts for all this fervor? Many in the crowd were…