John Carpenter at Troxy

John Carpenter
Troxy, 1 November 2016

Right or wrong, I grew up watching horror films. It was the era of VHS after all, and for some reason, as long as it didn't have excessive sex in it, my parents saw no harm in my brothers and I indulging in our passion of scary movies, often watching the best ones over and over. One of our absolute filmmakers quickly became John Carpenter.

Obviously as kids we were not well versed in directors, but Carpenter, for us, was up there with Steven Spielberg. We loved his films, especially Escape From New York, The Thing and Big Trouble In Little China, but favourite was Halloween and I still think it's one of the best horror films ever made. But not only did make movies we loved, Carpenter (bar The Thing) also wrote and performed the evocative synth-based music on the soundtracks of those movies, it was as memorable and brilliant to us as any of his films.

Carpenter has gradually stopped making movies (his last was The Ward in 2010) but his soundtracks kept gaining a cult following and this renewed interest in his music led to him making his first non-soundtrack album, Lost Themes in 2014 followed by Lost Themes II earlier this year. All of this has led to Carpenter touring for the first time and, rather suitably, headlining ATP's annual Halloween fest, Release The Bats.

Of course, although he played at the Troxy on Halloween night itself, I'm seeing him the next night but there's plenty of Halloween ephemera around - carved pumpkins, spooky posters - so it just feels like Halloween has been extended for a day, which is more than fine by me. The second thing I notice is the place is absolutely filled with mostly middle-aged men, which is fine but I'm definitely in the minority in this crowd, which is a shame. 

I did wonder what a Carpenter music show would consist of, would it just be him on a synth with a crazy light show? When I caught a glimpse of the stage it became clear: he had a band and a large screen behind him. This looked like a rock show but with movie clips, and that's essentially what it turned out to be and, you know what, it worked absolutely brilliantly.

Carpenter had a full rock band with him - drums, bass, guitar - plus his son Cody on "lead synth", while he took centre stage behind his own synth of course. Dressed all in black, his long white hair in a ponytail, he looked every bit the ageing rocker rather than a cult film director. 

Opening with possibly one of his best ever themes tune, Escape From New York, we were treated by a powerfully loud version of the opening title music accompanied by some of the best visuals from the film. Immediately it was clear just what an effective combination this was: the music sounded fantastic live, the movie clips were cool and full of nostalgia and if you ever got bored of watching them then you only had to look down and enjoy Carpenter doing a little old man boogie with his contagious dad-dancing.

Every piece of music worked wonderfully live and brought back a wave of good memories, from Assault On Precinct 13 to Pork Chop Express from Big Trouble In Little China to the metal-infused Darkness Begins from Prince Of Darkness (complete with clips of Alice Cooper looking spooky in the film). There were also some nice light touches, like the band all donning black sunglasses for the rocky Coming To LA from They Live while the screen flashed some of the famous secret slogans from the film (the movie is about sunglasses that allow humans to see aliens among us and the subliminal messages they hide in plain sight) and a dry ice machine being used at full force for the title theme for The Fog.

There are a few of Carpenter's films which he hasn't written the music for so naturally I didn't expect any to be included but rather nicely, in tribute to its composer the legendary Ennio Morricone, they played the eerie theme tune to The Thing which actually fit in really well with the dark synths and prog rock-inspired numbers and of course sounded fantastic. 

In between all Carpenter's film work he also played tracks from his two Lost Themes albums. These sounded great too and felt like each should really be on the soundtrack to a film, in fact it was a shame these were the only pieces of music without any visuals attached. There's actually brilliant music videos for a few of his original tracks, such as Night, and it was a missed opportunity that they didn't think to play these behind the band during those songs, but it's a small quibble really.

Not surprisingly he left the instantly recognisable theme to Halloween to almost the end, and not only did it sound every bit as chilling and thrilling as you'd expect, I also almost cried at how cool and beautiful it sounded live, it was an absolutely brilliant experience to hear it live.

The main set actually ended with a quite jamming take on the music from In The Mouth Of Madness (one of Carpenter's more underrated and forgotten films), complete with guitar solos and feedback, and leaving the crowd cheering for more. Carpenter returned to treat us with a couple more of his more recent tunes and then warned us "to drive carefully when you're going home - Christine is out there!" I had actually forgotten the music to this film and it turned out to be one of my highlights of the night, the kind of atmospherically eerie electronica that so many 80s-inspired movies are trying so hard to copy these days.

It was a thrilling and beautiful way to end a truly beautiful night.Who knew scary music could be so much fun.