Distant Worlds (aka FINAL FANTASY CONCERT) Write-up

[raaj]

This has been on my mind since the ride home from the concert, so now I'm going ahead and writing a little blow-by-blow of the night. I attended the concert at Powell Hall in St. Louis, Missouri, which is a pretty classy place even if something about the aisles made me keep thinking I'd fall as I walked up them. (Maybe I have some sort of height thing, dunno.) In the hall was a giant projector screen which showed graphics from the various games as they played. The conductor was Arnie Roth, don't know anything about him but he was a conversationalist with a little bit of humor and kept the program running smoothly.

Since it was the Saturday show, we missed out on Friday's Liberi Fatali, J-E-N-O-V-A, and Melodies of Life. Sad, but the selection on Saturday had songs I wouldn't have traded for Friday's either. (Hello, Aerith's theme.)

SONG BY SONG:

1. Final Fantasy VII - Opening - Bombing Mission

This song is just amazing fun to hear from an orchestra and was great to open up with; since it is an opening song in the first place, it starts out gentle, a bit mysterious, and then builds up with so much energy. Especially when you hear it in person. The video played along with the music began with VII's opening, nearly the same but a bit asynchronous because they were shortening it. Can I just say now that I found it adorable that they put up the big blocky VII graphics on a huge projector screen? I hadn't known what to expect, if they would stick to CGI or what, so it was cute to see Cloud's little flip out of a train, legos and all. It got up to Barret's "C'mon newcomer follow me", then jumped to them in the tunnel following the first reactor bombing, then moved onto various other screens (first was actually Cloud running around the seashell structure.) Specially featured were cuts of them in battle, the WEAPONs and Bahamut summons. Oh, and meeting Cid in the rocket. It was fun.

2. Victory Theme

Short and sweet. You know how this goes. (And if you don't, click the link and refresh thyself.)

3. I-III - Medley 2010

Not much to say here but that it was a nice listen. And I tested myself with recognizing Japanese on the video, since that was strangely enough the version they used.

4. X - Zanarkand

Lovely, just as expected. It became noticeable on this piece how they edited some video to suit the music better, which was nice.

5. VIII - Eyes On Me

Susan Calloway, the vocalist, came out to sing this, and apparently she was asked by Nobuo to sing "Answers" in XIV, and listening to her I could see why. She gave a lovely performance for this, I wish I could find a better recording. Also the clips of Squall and Rinoa on screen made for a lot of nostalgia. I forgot how Squall looks so lost when Rinoa points to the star; it's very cute.

6. V - Dear Friends

They brought out a guitarist for this, Kirk Hanser. This song was interesting because I knew I'd never heard of it before, but so many times throughout it I was reminded of other Final Fantasy songs (or even Kingdom Hearts). It's just very Final Fantasy.

7. IX - Vamo'alla Flamenco

Orchestra makes this sound so epic, you would hardly guess this is the Chocobo Hot & Cold song.

8. X - Suteki da ne

I wish a little they'd gone with just instruments instead of including the soloist. Nothing against her voice, but the lyrics' translation changed the flow a bit and just didn't seem very meaningful. And because I hadn't expected it and we weren't shown printed lyrics, I was distracted trying to catch what the lyrics actually were.

9. Chocobo Medley 2010

They had a brief bit of XIV's arrangement before this, but anyway. IT'S A CHOCOBO SONG. What else needs to be said? (Although I was mildly disappointed that they did not include any of the chocobo bits from IX. We had Squall bouncing around on a chocobo, but no Zidane???)

And then, thankfully for my poor legs, an intermission.

10. VIII - The Man with the Machine Gun

So I admit, I hadn't really expected much from the VIII music since we missed Liberi Fatali and I didn't know what to expect with Eyes on Me. But then this started. And that's all it took, from the very start I was on board with the awesome; it's an incredibly fun song. Video clips of Laguna, Kiros and Ward fighting and then--of all things--Galbadia's attack on Balamb Garden just cemented it. (Also, made me realize that hey, the grunts' helmets have some big resemblances between games... heh.)

11. VI - Dark World

Nobuo Uematsu came out to play for this! He was on the keyboard, which sounded nice if somewhat repetitive. Apparently the deal is that Roth has to play too if he's out, so Roth played violin. There was only very brief video of the title screen with a stormy background before it blacked out for the rest of the song. I was mildly disappointed for not seeing more; overall, it was a poignant song, the presentation just seemed a bit simplistic.

12. IX - You're Not Alone

Oh God. Watching the video that went along with this song just drove home the fact that as cute as IX's graphics were, there are a lot of dark things in that game. Also left me wondering why there isn't more IX in Kingdom Hearts, because seriously, "cute but dark" fits right in with Disney downfalls and charming worlds encroached in darkness.

Also--it's very hard to describe, but I adore the "voices" in the song. The very beginning always sounds like many different voices in a crowd, and then it solidifies into one "main" voice, with more coming in. That might just be my imagination at play though.

13. XII - Kiss Me Goodbye

My one...pet peeve song. Kiss Me Goodbye is one I've deadeyed a bit since the game... Nothing's really wrong with it but I don't find anything amazing and I'm still baffled that it was the closing to a game like XII. Add in that the video looked like it was sped up, with movements coming off a bit unnatural, and I was waiting for the next song to come.

14. VII - Aerith's Theme

You'd think this would be my song of the night, but that was definitely taken by Bombing Mission or The Man With the Machine Gun. To be honest, I think I've overplayed this song (and various versions of it) for myself and ruined the impact a bit. Still, it was very calming to listen to and I love what they did with the video here. Started with Cloud waking up in Aerith's flower bed, then the "date" in the playground, and later on the shared dream. The thing I loved is that in contrast to the earlier VII piece, they kept the dialogue boxes out of the video here, having it focus on how Aerith and Cloud were interacting in just body language alone. (Which was, in a way, a mini-review of its own.) It was very sweet.

My sister had a bone to pick with this one: they showed Aerith praying, but not her death. When the camera panned up to where Sephiroth would descend from, they freezed the frame and had it blur out in a ray of orange, then cut to the materia dropping from the altar. She didn't like this, but I did; everyone knows Aerith dies. In a way, the freeze frame hit me more because it lets you think about what happens rather than getting caught up in the visual details. Aerith's slaying has so many tiny technical errors in it that I think they did it partly to avoid people thinking about Sephiroth's gloves, pft.

15. VIII - Don't Be Afraid

Hah, the opening for this was cute: unlike the other videos, this one actually included the audio from the game at the start--the scene in Dollet with the barking dog. The audio of course cut out once it was time for the piece proper to begin.

16. XIII - Blinded by Light

Blinded by Light was composed by Masashi Hamauzu, not Nobuo, and knowing that may have influenced me--but it was very noticeable that this song was different from the others. And it was a good song, but I kept thinking something was missing. Might be something about how it was arranged for a symphony.

17. VI - Opera "Maria and Draco"

I didn't think I would like this one! I was quite happily proved wrong, and the whole audience got a laugh out of the operatic antics of VI sprites.

ENCORE. VII - One Winged Angel

Unexpected! Yet it probably shouldn't have been. They said there was no chorus and asked us to be one and played the three notes on a piano a few times to show us what we had to do and let us guess what it actually was. I am a sad VII fan for not getting it until Nobuo was handed the mic and pronounced, "Sephiroth". This time for video they used a lot of Advent Children scenes, which they hadn't done in the earlier VII pieces, though when it came to Nibelheim they stuck to bits of the original game. With Nobuo holding up cute cue cards (some of them thanking the crowd and such), an audience chanting Latin, and the Distant Worlds logo being consumed by Sephiroth's firewalking, it was a shamelessly fanservicey but fun way to close the evening. (And really, the whole evening was fanservice anyway.)

My only complaint is that I have had the urge to chant "veni veni venias, ne me mori facias" for two days counting.

Looks like they only have three shows left, from their website--I'm really glad I caught it.