I’ve been to quite a few events over the years where a classic movie is shown, and an orchestra plays the movie’s score under it. About 90 percent of the time, the score is by John Williams, but I’ve also seen versions with The Godfather, another time over a bunch of Looney Tunes cartoons, as well as Black Panther, where Masamba Diop, the guy who played the African walking drum on the soundtrack, played alongside the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Other times, an orchestra will play along with the hits of a pop musician, like Beck, or Phish’s Trey Anastacio, or Metallica, or Kenny G. The Philadelphia Orchestra has also been known to play versions of fight songs whenever the Eagles or Phillies are in the midst of a playoff run.
I’ve always wondered something: Do the orchestra musicians like this? Do they see playing along with movie soundtracks or rock stars as beneath them? Do they see it as a necessary concession to keep the orchestra solvent, in order to “pay for” the more traditional performances of actual classical music? Or do they think it’s cool?
When it comes to Wu-Tang Clan, at least, we got our answer: They think it’s an awesome experience.
That’s one takeaway I had from A Wu-Tang Experience: Live at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a new concert film that was released on digital the first week of May. The musicians we hear from in the film were, to a man (and woman) ecstatic at the opportunity to perform with the legendary hip-hop group.
Wu-Tang at the Red Rocks
A Wu-Tang Experience covers a concert the group performed back in 2021 at Red Rocks, the famed ampitheatre in Colorado, where they were backed by the 60-piece Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Wu-Tang’s own RZA directed the film, along with Gerald K. Barclay, and the film consists of the concert footage, as well as interviews with several of the performers, as well as bit of Wu-Tang history. We also hear from the son of the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard, who goes by, you guessed it, Young Dirty Bastard, and has joined the group.
The film was shot in 2021, and it’s apparent in that lots of people are wearing masks, and COVID remains a live topic at the time of shooting. The film had a brief theatrical run, plus a PBS bow last year, before the new digital release.
Also, it might be impossible to have a bad concert film at Red Rocks. I’ve been there, although not for a concert, and it’s an exceedingly beautiful venue, and my first thought in seeing it was, “some of my favorite live albums of all time were recorded here.”
There has been quite a lot of Wu-Tang content over the last few years. The 2019 Showtime docuseries Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men told the group’s story in documentary form, while Wu-Tang: An American Saga, a dramatized version of their story, landed on Hulu, just a few months later, and lasted a full three seasons. And last year, there was a documentary called Ol’ Dirty Bastard: A Tale of Two Dirtys, about ODB individually.
The Red Rocks doc is a fine addition to that tradition, and shows that Wu-Tang and an orchestra go better together than you thought they would.
