John Carpenter's simple, legendarily creepy Halloween theme is one of the most immediately-recognizable movie themes of all time, and the horror master himself played it live for the first time during a concert (his first ever!) at Los Angeles's Bootleg Theater over the weekend — not to mention his themes for 1976's Assault on Precinct 13, 1980's The Fog, 1979's Escape from New York, 1983's Christine, 1986's Big Trouble in Little China and 1989's They Live (the latter four of which were co-composed with Alan Howarth). I can only imagine that seeing this live and in person was a religious experience for Carpenter fanatics.
“I direct horror movies,” said the writer/director/producer before jumping into Halloween. “I love horror movies. Horror movies will live forever.”
Carpenter also performed tracks from his albums Lost Themes and Lost Themes II.
You can watch Carpenter perform all of the above-mentioned themes in full or in part thanks to the fan-shot YouTube videos below. Dread Central has a full rundown of the performance here.
Halloween:
Assault on Precinct 13:
Escape from New York:
The Fog:
Christine:
Big Trouble in Little China:
They Live: