Bill Murray MCs the first night of a three-night Hollywood Bowl tribute to Wes Anderson on Friday, setting the tone for a program built around music from Anderson’s films. Wes Anderson also made a brief appearance onstage with Murray, while the evening moved through orchestrated cues and live rearrangements that turned his soundtracks into the main event.
Jason Schwartzman and Rushmore songs
Jason Schwartzman brought the night back to Rushmore, recalling that Wes Anderson played him the film’s entire soundtrack in his car before the movie was shot. “This is the soundtrack to the movie. This is the order it’s going to be in,” Schwartzman said, and later added, “I was at my mom’s house tying my shoe, and I see a cassette tape on the ground titled “Rushmore songs.””
That memory mattered because the tribute was built on the same kind of exacting soundtrack logic. Anderson’s films are known for careful music choices, but the Hollywood Bowl program asked live players to reinterpret those choices onstage, which is a different kind of control: the original sequence stayed fixed in concept, while the performance itself depended on musicians translating it in real time.
Justin Meldal-Johnsen’s live setup
Justin Meldal-Johnsen served as musical director, with Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Jason Falkner, Joey Waronker and Gus Seyffert in the backing band. The L.A. Phil also performed music by Alexandre Desplat from The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, plus The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou’s “Ping Island” by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh.
Jean-Yves Thibaudet played “Moses Rosenthaler” from The French Dispatch, Rajib Karmakar and Aakash Pujara played sitar and flute drones from The Darjeeling Limited, and Kaoru Watanabe performed “Shinto Shrine” from Isle of Dogs. The range showed how much of Anderson’s musical identity now sits between orchestra, band and solo turns rather than in one fixed format.
Beck, Jackson Browne and Devo
Over three nights at the Hollywood Bowl, artists including Beck, Jackson Browne and Devo were set to perform music from Wes Anderson’s work. Bill Murray’s job on Friday was less about showmanship than navigation, giving the opener a host who knew the material and knew the filmmaker, which helped the tribute read as a curated concert rather than a loose nostalgia set.
The remaining nights now carry the open question: what songs did Beck, Jackson Browne and Devo choose from Anderson’s catalog. For a program built on precision, the final two nights will be judged on whether those performances keep the same balance of orchestral detail, band muscle and soundtrack memory that Friday established.
