Last week the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) performed excerpts from the scores of composer John Williams, responsible for such memorable cinematic hits such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Schindler’s List. Now, for another short-run season the MSO are taking up their instruments again for arguably one of the most popular and successful movies of the 1980s: Back to the Future.
The first in the trilogy – and really the best one – premiered in 1985 and introduced the world to Marty McFly (Michael J Fox), Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and (the real star of the movie) a souped-up, time travelling DeLorean vehicle that broke through the space-time continuum as it moved back and forth through past, present and future to disrupt and change reality as we knew it.
To see this blockbuster once again on the big screen, with the MSO performing award-winning Alan Silvestri’s musical score live is a pure nostalgia hit – a chance to relive some of the glories of this beloved movie and the one that added the words ‘flux capacitor’ to modern lexicon.
Conductor Benjamin Northey came onto the stage on opening night with a skateboard under his arm in honour of Fox’s daredevil antics. Unfortunately, he did not deploy it on the night, but he did conduct his troupe of musicians to a rousing performance after reminding us of the age in which Back to the Future was released: a pre-internet, pre-mobile phone time where single-named entities like Madonna and Wham! dominated the charts and people watched movies on their VHS video players… Oh, the good old days!
The mix between live music and large screen is seamless, with the eye switching between the large screen to the black-garbed musicians stationed in front of the stage. An interval is granted for the hard-working musos to down tools and take a rest, and the film has subtitles too for those who require them.
For those wondering, Huey Lewis’ ‘The Power of Love’ is not orchestrally manipulated – the MSO wisely have decided to leave this iconic song alone.
That the all-ages crowd at Hamer Hall were loudly appreciative of both visuals and sonic presentation goes without saying – so much so that the woman behind us, clearly a rabid fan, annoyingly continued to recite the lines throughout the night seconds before they were uttered.
This concert has a limited run time, so go if you can to revel in this clever and romantic tale of temporal displacement: to cheer when bully-boy Biff finally gets walloped by George and at Marty’s solo guitar riffs at the Enchantment Beneath the Sea dance.
Aside from the acting, set, storyline and, of course, the music, the everlasting appeal of Back to Future is the simple message that underscores it: what you do today will affect what happens tomorrow. It’s a pared-back stream of philosophy that anyone can grasp.
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Tickets may be expensive, but these live orchestra presentations should be considered a special occasion treat. The formula is perfectly tweaked: a classic movie revitalised by the dynamism of live musicians – what’s not to like?
Back to the Future in Concert
Hamer Hall
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conductor Benjamin NortheyÂ
Tickets: $69-$154
Back to the Future will be performed until 25 October 2024.
