Composer Ramin Djawadi on the end of the Game of Thrones concert series

It was the final night of the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience, the orchestra playing the familiar scores in the famous Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and it was a perfect time for show composer Ramin Djawadi to look back on the years of making music for HBO’s behemoth fantasy series.

“I think the music kind of became a character on its own in the show,” Djawadi told Buzzfeed News before the Hollywood Bowl soundcheck. “Because of my close collaboration with showrunners David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and how thoughtfully planned out our music approach has been and how we use the themes, all that storytelling goes into the music.”

The Live Concert Experience plays silent Thrones video clips on big screens above the orchestra, presented without any dialogue. “The music tells the story quite well, “Djawadi says. “People want to be taken through the ups and downs of the emotions. And seeing live musicians play the music just enhances that so much more.”

Djawadi recently won an Outstanding Music Composition Emmy for his contribution to Thrones, and he enjoys the thrill of playing for a live audience; he finds it very different from the work of studio composition, which he describes as a more lonely experience. When the live orchestra starts up pieces that “clearly seem to be popular,”  Djawadi can sense the excitement in the audience:

"Like, for example, with ‘Light of the Seven’ — when I hit those piano keys, the crowd just starts cheering, which is incredible when you think about how that’s a 9-minute instrumental score piece, and you can just tell the people know it and they’ve been waiting for it to be performed. They get excited about it, and it’s pretty incredible."

Djawadi is well aware of the mixed fan reaction to the show’s controversial final season, but feels fans flock to the concerts because “the show is such a phenomenon, and different opinions won’t change that.”

"The show just got so big, and when something gets that big, there’s a lot of people that watch it. And so there’s a lot of opinions, and everybody’s entitled to their own opinion. But the bottom line is, it’s still one one of the greatest shows that was ever made, and I think people just want to be put into that world again."

Sure, not all fans enjoyed the ending, but disappointment with the narrative is “just a part of it,” according to Djawadi. “I think that’s why Game of Thrones is Game of Thrones, because it’s the unexpected or the surprise effect of the story and everything around it. But it’s great to see that people do come out (to the concert) and they do want to be put back into Westeros and have fun and enjoy it.”

If the comments from attendees are any indication, Djawadi’s sentiment is borne out. “The last season could’ve been better, but the music was still great,” said Riverside, California local Selma Pena said — she and her boyfriend came in identical Game of Thrones shirts. “I love the score, and the music from Season 8 was really good. I still really enjoyed it, even if there were other things I didn’t like about the show.”

Robert Wong and Jonathan Klein paid for Live Concert Experience tickets because of the “iconic” music. Said Wong:

"We’d gone to another performance a few years ago and we really liked it. Then we kept buying the soundtracks from the last few years too. We really like the music. The last season wasn’t that good, but I thought there was a lot of great music in the Season 8 episodes. So I try not to hold that against them."

Palm Springs residents Diana and Ryan Smith are “huge” Game of Thrones fans and took in the concert because the TV show is over and, as Diana said, “this is the last little piece of it we can be a part of.” Adds Smith:

"The music is such a big part of the show. It’s really epic. It just goes so well with the scenes and is played out so well. When the Night King gets killed, that music was so, so epic. And when ‘The Rains of Castamere’ comes on, you know something crazy is about to happen."

“Even though people hated the ending, they’re still attached to the show because it was a huge part of our lives,” Diana said. “Even though we weren’t expecting the show to end the way it did, and we were bummed out, we’re still attached to it and wanted to show up here tonight.”

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Looks like Djawadi could whip up a few more concert tours in the future, if he felt so inclined.

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