Michael Giacchino

This past Saturday I was lucky enough to land tickets to see Michael Giacchino at the Ford Amphitheater as he conducted this year’s “Lost: We Have To Go Back’ Concert. The special night began with a panel which was originally set to have Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse onstage with Michael speaking about the show and answering some fan questions, but to our surprise and delight they were soon joined onstage by Josh Holloway ( who played Sawyer), Emilie de Ravin (Claire, who is actually pregnant now, and assured us all her baby-bump was NOT a prop), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), and Andrea Gabriel (Nadia).

Soon enough the fan questions were rolling in, and they discussed a number of topics, one of my favorites being how long seasons of ‘Lost’ would be if the show were made nowadays, with Carlton and Damon commenting that each season would probably only be about 10 episodes, and the whole series would have been much more concise. They were also asked about whether they would ever reboot the show and their thoughts on ABC “going back,” which no one on stage seemed particularly pleased. Carlton and Damon assured fans that they would have no part of any new version of ‘Lost,’ but reminded us that ABC/ Disney does own the series, so it is all too likely that it will happen someday.

They were also asked about the character of Walt and what the original plan was, commenting that Malcolm David Kelley simply was growing too fast to be kept on the show, which seems like a shame because they at one point seemed to have a whole plan involving his abilities. Similarly, they were asked about the full plan for Mr. Eko, and while he may have ended up dying early in Season 3, Carlton and Damon stated that a lot of the story roles he was going to take were then assumed by Desmond and Ben, making me wonder exactly how deep the character of Mr. Eko went with the island.

As for the man of the night, Michael Giacchino, he was asked a lot about the music for the series and what he found most interesting about working on ‘Lost,’ and he replied that ‘Lost’ was the project that really just let him “be him.” When asked what his favorite project of his career so far has been, he assured fans it is ‘Lost,’ which is not surprising considering how amazing the music for the series is.

The concert itself was magnificent, the orchestra under Giacchino’s direction performing all the themes and memorable score from the series flawlessly, at some points leaving few dry eyes in the audience as they recalled all the emotion and heartbreak of the series, ending it all with the incredible finale/ series closer track, ‘Moving On,’ which they played while the projections showed the final moments of the series with everyone in the church. It was a very memorable night, and I highly recommend going to see Michael Giacchino in concert if you ever get the chance, especially for ‘Lost’ music, as there has never really been music made for television that performs on the same level as the work Giacchino did for ‘Lost.’