Fight Club Live
Okay so this is something a little bit different. Not a concert in the sense of… well, concerts I normally go to. No mosh pits, no barricade, no crowdsurfing. The Wiltern in LA was totally seated for Fight Club, accompanied by the Dust Brothers playing the score live.
Fight Club is my favorite movie. I’ve seen it more times than even makes sense. I joke about how you can tell when I’m starting to lose control of life because I’ll start watching Fight Club on repeat, as in, it will be in my DVD player, and rather than take it out when the movie ends, I hit play again immediately, and then maybe a few more times within the week/month.
So naturally, I took a bus from San Francisco to LA to watch Fight Club for the 3465789765th time. My life is basically six bands and two movies over and over and over and I am strangely okay with that. If you keep up with this blog, you can probably figure out the bands. I’m not mentioning the other movie because it’s unimportant right now.
So here I am, eight hours from home for less than 24 hours, in line to see a movie I can’t even watch with myself because I’m so annoying quoting along with it. Why did I do this? I am an insane person.
Apparently not the only one, because the line outside the Wiltern was CRAZY long, holy crap. Like multiple blocks worth of people.
From the event page on Facebook:
The Dust Brothers and Jacob Maymudes present a one of a kind, out of this world evening at the historic Wiltern theater, featuring the live musical score and acclaimed Fight Club by David Fincher. A rare live appearance of Mike Simpson of The Dust Brothers along with multi-instrumentalist Angel Roche (Dave Navarro and Ziggy Marley), Eric Klerks on guitar and bass (Grandmothers Of Invention), Damon Ramirez on the synths (Fungo Mungo, Looner), and the talented film composer, Zoë Poledouris-Roche (composer: Conan The Barbarian, Bully). Pre-show event with Dj Tim Bird in the Wiltern lobby.
The show features eye-popping stunts and acrobatic action onstage by fight coordinator Henry Layton. Come don your project mayhem rebellious side, and join in on this sensory overloaded revival night of Fight Club, the American cult classic.
Because I’m a piece of shit, I went looking for a seat in the venue by an outlet so I could charge my phone during the movie, and somehow managed to find one.
But despite my being a piece of shit, everything works out for a reason, so SOMEHOW the guy two seats over from me was likely the only other crazy person who traveled to watch this movie he’s already seen hundreds of times. Jon was a fellow music journalist from Vegas, who was in town mostly for Fight Club Live, but also to see his friend Tom Morello and go to Chris Cornell‘s memorial.
WELL THEN that’s pretty friggin amazing.
He told the people at the merch table he came from Vegas, so they gave him a free poster. When I told him I came from San Francisco, he introduced me to the people at merch and told them so I could get one too.
Between me and Jon was a couple who said they watch this movie every five years. I told them I watch it at least once a month. That’s probably a low estimate.
I’m not sure who the host was exactly, but he came out before the movie started for a brief introduction.
Host: “Looks like we’ve got a lot of first timers here. What do we say to first timers?”
Crowd: “YOU HAVE TO FIGHT!”
There were some technical difficulties when the movie first started. I’m not sure what was wrong, but they started and stopped it twice before letting it play through.
This immediately became a VERY culty experience. Definitely not for people who aren’t already crazy about this movie. For instance, here’s a couple that came dressed as Tyler and Marla. AMAZING.
I have a tendency to just quote it without even looking at the screen, so it was really nice to actually pay attention for once. I REALLY love this movie.
I also really love the score, so it was super cool to have a live band playing alongside it.
The host encouraged us to scream and yell and do whatever we feel like because it’s an interactive experience, not like in a regular movie theater showing at all. I did my usual, which was to quote along with the entire movie, but a lot of people would scream out lines before they were said.
People were running around onstage with flashlights, and some scenes had actors playing out fights onstage. Beautiful.
I’m not sure if the band actually played all of the music or not. Some scenes I couldn’t tell, but others it was obvious because I could only hear the band and not the movie.
One scene that comes to mind: “I ran til my veins pumped battery acid.”
Did I mention how much I LOVE this movie? I would definitely do this again. By far the best way I have ever experienced it. I saw it in a theater once three years ago and was very disappointed that no one was quoting a single line. Whereas here, the whole theater erupted in a chorus of “HIS NAME IS ROBERT PAULSON.”
Tyler Durden might be crazy, but I really don’t think the movie is just about toxic masculinity in the way that most people automatically jump to. There are a lot of good lessons too, like: “What do you wish you’d done before you died?”
The ending scene always kills me. We had a singalong to The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” Honestly one of my favorite songs of all time. It’s so beautiful. Everything about it was beautiful, and the feels are unavoidable.
At the end of the night, Jon thanked me for being a single serving friend.
“It’s nice to share this with like minded people.”
Truth, dude.
Apparently Fight Club Live is becoming a tour, so I might be heading to Riverside in August to do it again. Tour? For my favorite movie? It doesn’t take much to convince me on this one at all.
Pictures taken from The Wiltern‘s Facebook
