Clint Mansell - Manchester RNCM, Friday 10th October

[Waz]

Well, that was a rather awesome way to spend a Friday evening.

For around an hour and a half Clint delighted a sell out crowd at the main RNCM Theatre with a selection from the soundtracks that he's composed for.

Up on stage first was good friend and BBC 6 Music's Mary-Anne Hobbs, who introduced him by reminding him of the first time they met when he had leather pants on and not much else. She had tried to convince him for tonight but said Clint was having none of it!

Clint came on and said a quick hello before blitzing into the main theme from Pi, and still has that really good vibe to it. He did a fairly lengthy suite around the main "Welcome To Lunar Industries" theme of Moon, and also headed into the Requiem for a Dream suite, with some of the overtures (and some really superb strings from the Sonos Quartet on stage with him) before then leaning into the rather ace "Lux Aeterna" of course, which just grew with each string being played.

It was a nice idea to have "Not At Home" from the Last Night soundtrack with the singer playing on the video wall behind which worked well, and there were also parts from the Noah soundtrack, where Clint described how director Darren Aranofsky kept the Hollywood execs away from him and that the score would be ready for the right time - fascinating stuff. He also mentioned a time he met with Madonna and had had a chip on his top from a quick burger drive through on the way.

He also played a track from "The Wrestler" as wel, and later on the evening closed with "Stay With Me" and the superb "Death Is The Road To Awe" from The Fountain soundtrack. The latter really did grow beautifully throughout, and the ensemble were all up fo playing this with some nice visuals out back. Clint was quite humble throughout and really appreciated the crowd being there and in his words, giving it a chance. And it was well worth taking. Different, but really good.

T-shirts were £20 and £25 though so I declined, although they looked pretty good. You could get CDs and LPs of some of the soundtracks, namely the score to Filth, Moon, Stoker and Last Night. If you do get chance, do go - it's different and I think you'll enjoy it.

[kwvp]

Nice one. Barbican gig was excellent too.

[russelldempsey]

Perfect review mate cheers. I love his soundtrack work. Weird really cos it's not even like PWEI and yet still manages to hit my tastes dead on.