Light Saber Battle at the Hollywood Bowl
I am a Star Wars fan (Episodes 4, 5 and 6, not the new ones)
In fact, I am a die-hard Star Wars fan.
When I was three, I would watch the Star Wars movies every day and that is how I learned to speak English (at home, my family exclusively spoke Armenian.)
I would get scared and cover my eyes whenever the Emperor was in a scene. Even though I had already seen the movies dozens of times, I would ask my older sister why Luke didn’t just use his “Light Saver” when he first walked into the Emperor’s chamber (with a heavy Armenian accent, of course.)
A few days ago, I saw John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl and the highlight was actually right after intermission.
The crowd knew that the Star Wars Theme was coming…
Just before John Williams came back on stage, the house lights dimmed and all you could see were a thousand light sabers spread throughout the crowd, pointed to the sky.
When the orchestra played the Imperial March during the second encore, the light sabers were waving up and down in perfect rhythm…it was beautiful.
John William’s music has been a huge part of our culture over the past 30 years (Jaws, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, etc.) and it was amazing to watch him conduct the hits from his vast catalog.
It was also reassuring to see that I wasn’t the only Star Wars geek in the audience; in fact, there were more than a thousand people there who were bigger geeks than I am.