It’s haunting.
No one can quite put their finger on it, yet nearly everyone has felt it. It touches you, making the touch of everything else feel significant.
You don’t notice the slight breeze on your face from the air conditioning until the first notes start playing.
Your breathing becomes shallow.
You’re comforted and on edge at the same time.
The silhouette of organist Roger Sayer, sitting with his back to you, is talking straight to you.
It’s one of those dreams you have; an “imagine this…” moment playing out in reality. Interstellar in concert at the Royal Albert Hall, played by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. It’s an objectively great idea, and it’s even better than you’d imagine.
Projected onto a 40-foot screen, a special version of Interstellar captivates a packed Royal Albert Hall. I say special because the original soundtrack has been stripped out, replaced live by a 60-piece orchestra.
Counterintuitively, Interstellar is such a unique listing in the Films in Concert series precisely because of the dominance that silence takes in the movie.
You find yourself forgetting that the soundtrack is being played live until your eyes take a quick glance down below the screen; the same way you forget you’re on Earth until you look away.
And while the softer tracks keep you entirely engrossed, it is the suspenseful pieces that prove they are onto something truly special.
I absolutely must give a special nod to the performance of “No Time for Caution.” It’s an already intense scene, but you’ve experienced nothing like this. Unless maybe you’ve played a teddy picker with a PS5 in clawing range.
I think I held my breath for the duration of the four-minute track. As colossal as the venue is, it was no match for the timpani. The drums sent rhythmic, structural shockwaves through the crowd in a way you could almost see, like a stone dropped in a pond, or thumping a beer belly in slow motion, for lack of a better visualisation.
Honestly, I can’t listen to that track again without my body tensing up.
It earned a fervent, spontaneous round of applause afterwards, as if no one knew what else to do with the intense energy that had just built up.
You see the film differently. I’ve seen it in IMAX before, and although the sound effects and dialogue are more refined and punchy there, there’s simply no comparing it to this experience.
Few films deserve this kind of stage, but the Royal Albert Hall has picked a stellar selection for their upcoming screenings, including La La Land, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and James Bond.
I’d always recommend Interstellar, but anything in their programme is a must-see.
