The Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse Live in Concert swung through the city of McAllen on Sep. 14 making music crawl up the walls, shooting webs of rhythm into the ears of the audience.
The show consists of the audience watching the full Spider-Man in the Spider-Verse movie on a big high-definition screen while a live orchestra including percussion and a scratch DJ, perform during the film’s music scenes.
Tour Conductor Emily Marshall expressed that a lot of preparation goes into making the show with rehearsals and collaboration with the original composer of the Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse movie Daniel Pemberton in London.
“This music it’s crazy, because it was written for the movie.” Marshall said. “It wasn’t written to be produced live. So it’s been an adventure of figuring out how to get all those cool sounds, all of the scratching that DJ Damage does, and combining it all and collaborating together to make kind of a cohesive show, that we can reproduce like six times a week, all over, all over the place.”
Once the movie is over and the credits begin to roll, the orchestra does not stop playing. She said that it gives the audience one last chance to appreciate the live performance and experience the music.
“I think the end credits are really fun, too, because it just turns into a concert.” Marshall said. “It didn’t have to be an exciting moment, but we turn it into a concert, turned volume up, and you get to just pay attention to the orchestra a little bit there.”
DJ Damage, who is part of the orchestra, comes from a hip-hop background where the music is organized in sets of four bars.The most challenging part of joining the orchestra was getting used to playing music that had a wide range of tempos and dynamics.
“The music goes up and down and around and tempos change out of nowhere.” Damage said. “It’s definitely a new experience for me as a scratch DJ and I don’t have a score to read from, so I have to literally every show do my best to memorize the parts that’s coming up. So it’s been a fun experience.”
Pictured: DJ Damage
String Player Julie Beistline expressed that she has toured in other orchestras before, one of them called “Our Planet” with Emily Marshall conducting it.
Beistline said that a lot of the effects for the show are done by the strings and she enjoys every bit of it.
She mentioned that even though the orchestra has performed and seen the film about six nights every week, she has to keep in mind that the audience most likely never seen it before which is how they are able to keep the same energy throughout the tour.
“Just trying to pretend like it’s like the last week of the show is my secret.” Beistline said. “I get sentimental and whenever any show ends I always try to pretend like it’s the very end. I’m like,
just play and remember why I chose to do music and just give it my all. That always feels good at the end of the night.”
The organizers have not yet officially announced what comes next for the Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse Live orchestra but according to Marshall there are rumors of the second film Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse being produced into an orchestra as well.
This is Timothy Chapman for Vaquero Radio.
