Hans Zimmer celebrated his 67th birthday with a rousing concert

Hans Zimmer may not have been wearing a stillsuit last night, but he still strode onto the stage at Madison Square Garden with all the confidence of a man who knows he’s a leader. On the night of his 67th birthday, the famed film composer took New York on a rousing tour from Arrakis to Themyscira, to Pride Rock and back to Ancient Rome, with some welcome stops in the here-and-now along the way.

If you’ve never seen Hans Zimmer perform, you should know that his shows rock. Literally. Accompanied by the Ukrainian Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra and his Disruptive Collective, a group of immensely talented musicians from around the world including original “Circle Of Life” vocalist Lebo M, Johnny Marr’s son Nile on guitar, and many more, the composer brought an energy to MSG as electric as any of its past performers. While Zimmer’s scores have reliably carried characters into battles, across seas, and throughout the folds of time itself, it’s still hard to fully comprehend how hard flutist Pedro Eustache’s homemade PVC pipe contraption or singer Lisa Gerrard’s Ancient Latin Gladiator aria hit in an arena like that until you’ve experienced it for yourself.

Zimmer and his band closed out the first half of the show with a lengthy lead-in to the Pirates Of The Caribbean riff that everyone over a certain age has had stuck in their head for the past two decades. In those four-odd minutes, he managed to build as much anticipation for the eventual drop as any EDM act. After a 20-minute intermission, he returned to travel through the crowd while playing a suite from The Dark Knight on an electric guitar, as any birthday-celebrating auteur is wont to do. During the show, the band also played suites from Wonder Woman, The Last Samurai, and No Time To Die, complete with strobe lights, lasers, really big drums, and during a gorgeous Interstellar segment, an aerial silk performer dangling from the ceiling above. At times, all of this felt a bit like a very impressive prelude to the system-shock of “Paul’s Dream” from Dune. Still, by the time New York native Loire Cotler’s otherworldly vocals finally cut in, it almost didn’t matter. We’d been on so many journeys already.

But Thursday night’s show wasn’t all sandworms and wormholes. Zimmer took a beat between each new film to speak a bit to the crowd about his process and the people who make it all happen. “I’m going to invite you all to a dinner party,” he said by way of introduction. “This is the dinner party, and we’re basically having a chat.” It was an apt metaphor. Sometimes, the composer was a colleague after one too many glasses of wine, getting a little too candid about his real feelings. “Let’s just say that some movies maybe didn’t turn out quite as well as we hoped, but we really like playing the music,” he said before launching into a suite from X-Men: Dark Phoenix. (To everyone’s benefit, his work on the score for Hillbilly Elegy didn’t get a similar mention.)

At others, he was incredibly earnest. Zimmer has faced some controversy around the issue of authorship throughout his career, with claims floating that he either relies heavily on interns or has taken credit for the work of other composers that he manages in the past. While many have argued that that’s just how score-writing works, the atmosphere on stage on Thursday didn’t feel like a hierarchy at all. Zimmer took time to celebrate almost every member of the Disruptive Collective individually, with shoutouts for musicians like electric cellist Tina Guo, who he called the “real Wonder Woman,” and guitarist Guthrie Govan, who he deemed one of the greatest working today. “King” James Earl Jones got a sweet shoutout during the (excellent) Lion King portion of the evening, and in another nice moment, the composer commended the Ukrainian members of the orchestra for leaving their homes and families during such a fraught time. “It’s unbelievable the courage they have and how much music means to them,” he said. Even Zimmer’s daughter Annabel made an appearance to accompany her dad during Inception‘s “Time,” which he said they’d never done before. It really was a family party.

But while Zimmer spent a significant portion of his 67th birthday putting the spotlight on others, he was still the undisputed star of the night. At any other performance, loud interjections from the audience might have been unwelcome or completely ruined the vibe. But on Thursday, as the lights went down and the spice blew away, the scattered cries of “Lisan al Gaib” that rang out in the darkness felt entirely right.