Shepherds Bush Empire, London, October 16, 2018

The Master of Horror takes to the stage again with another concert of his movie themes, joined by his Halloween soundtrack co-composers Cody Carpenter and Daniel Davies.

When Carpenter last performed in the UK in 2016, one gig was particularly special – it was on 31st October. The chance to listen to Halloween on Halloween was an opportunity not to be missed. When the 2018 dates were announced we were two weeks early for the Halloween date (that’s saved for the Hollywood Palladium in LA) but with a new Halloween movie and soundtrack due out the same week, this seemed fair recompense. But then, with little warning, the gig was moved from the Hammersmith Apollo to the much smaller Shepherds Bush Empire – had the bubble burst and ticket sales were down?

Luckily, the smaller venue size meant that we were all that much closer to Carpenter and co when they kicked off their set with the thud thud thud of Escape from New York, followed by the hypnotic Assault on Precinct 13. Each track followed the same format – Carpenter on keyboards, Davies on lead guitar and Carpenter junior on synths. Silent clips from each film were then projected on the walls of a white box set behind the band. The versions of the songs are the same arrangements as those on the Anthems album.

All of the classic themes were played (They Live and Big Trouble in Little China were keenly received), though this time we also had Carpenter’s Village of the Damned, Jack Nitzche’s Starman (Carpenter told us that it’s his only love story, though I’d put forward a strong case for Christine) and even more of a surprise was the inclusion of tracks from Vampire$ and Body Bags, his 1993 anthology TV movie. I imagine there’d have been a riot if this wasn’t the case, but the band also played a track from the new Halloween soundtrack (Prison Montage) before a segue into the original.

Verdict: Carpenter was a lot more animated and smiling than before – I imagine he’s having the time of his life being on the road with his boys and with a new album under their belt. The crowd was predominantly middle-aged men, wanting to tap into a formative part of our collective youths when a new Carpenter movie and score was as good as it got. From the applause at the end it was pretty clear that the movie maverick had worked his magic again. Often copied, never beaten, Carpenter at the synth keyboard is still a force of nature. 10/10