Film composer Hans Zimmer performed some of his famous music at Target Center

Before he became the most famous film composer of his generation, Hans Zimmer was a rocker.

In the 1970s, he played keyboards for bands such as the Buggles, Krisma and Krakatoa before turning to film scoring, proving he was talented enough that four Best Picture Oscar winners had scores by Zimmer.

And maybe you can take the rocker out of the arena, but you can’t take the rocker out of Zimmer’s arena. Maybe that’s why he’s currently leading a massive entourage—a rock band, an orchestra and a choir—across North America, performing live versions of suites from his film scores. “Hans Zimmer Live” sold out Minneapolis’ Target Center to near capacity Saturday night, and it was clear that the composer had learned a thing or two from Hollywood about how to dazzle you with a spectacular show and pump up your adrenaline.

With at least 40 musicians on a multi-level stage lined with lights, Zimmer and his company performed music from 16 films in a three-hour, 10-minute show that likely gave those in the Target Center crowd exactly the sonic rush they were looking for.

And such bursts seem to be Zimmer’s specialty. The themes around which he builds his film scores are essentially fairly simple in structure, usually placing a handful of chords in a certain order and then gradually adding more and more instruments on top. While some of his music is quite pretty, much of it is percussive to a volcanic degree, and there was plenty of boom on Saturday.

In between the two sets and the two-song encore was music from his Oscar-winning score for 2021’s “Dune,” with mysterious hooded figures singing from various locations around the arena and bass creating such a rumble that audience members couldn’t be blamed for expecting sandworms to erupt from the ground at any moment.

But most of the concert was devoted to extended sequels from blockbuster movies, like “Wonder Woman 1984,” which dropped seven women on two conjoined drum kits, a set of timpani and two bass drums, and “Man of Steel,” which perhaps included some overly dramatic bowing by the hotpants-clad female violinists and cellists at the edge of the stage but ended with one of the many impressive wailing electric guitar solos that Guthrie Govan unleashed during the concert.

While the score for one of the Best Picture winners, “Gladiator,” got a little too repetitive in a violent middle section that went on too long, it concluded with one of the most beautiful scores of the night, singer Lisa Gerrard’s voice floating above the audience from a perch atop the stage.