Passion 2006!
I'm dead tired. Today totally wiped me out. But it was excellent.
I met Chris at 10AM and we took the train to Town Hall station. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. We had lunch at around midday at the Town Hall Pizza Hut and then killed time at a D&D store, looking around for various homeless people, and then chasing ducks in the Royal Botanical gardens. Each time I go into Sydney the derelicts just get crazier and crazier. I saw some guys in full skeleton costume and these totally pink women with chihauhuas under their arms.
Ducks are amazing creatures. I feel that I could watch them for hours. Chris went right up to the edge of the pond to scare them and he nearly fell in. The Gardens are still beautiful, even though some areas have been fenced off due to the drought. Oh, and we saw a possum on the way back to Maquarie road. It fell right out of a tree and looked disoriented. It had a little baby possum in its pouch that looked so cute. It ran back into the Gardens when some tourists tried to photograph it.
And now for the concert. It was wonderful. I got to meet Yasunori Mitsuda, who composed the music for Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross and Xenogears, and Hitoshi Sakimoto, who wrote music for Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story. I was able to have a bit of a conversation with Sakimoto because he understood some english. He seemed like a very nice man. I got to shake his hand and everything. I also got autographs from the both of them.
Mitsuda actually played in the concert at times. His instrument was a little quiet though, it was difficult to hear over the violins and drums. The female violinist at the concert was so very talented, but the male violinist was no pushover too. He's the guy who owns the music troupe that plays in Sydney, so it's nice to know he still plays simple music along with managing an entire company. I talked to him a bit after the concert. He asked what my favorite song played was and I answered that it was Kou Ootani's 'Free Bird', and he said that if I liked it that much I should come back next year, because they'll be playing a lot more of his works soon. It was nice to know.
Here's the listing of songs that Chris and I heard;
First Half
Digimon - Digimon Arrangement
Final Fantasy XII - Clan Headquarters
Final Fantasy XII - Victory Fanfare
Xenosaga II - Sakura
Chrono Cross - Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World
Kirite - Is Kirite Burning up?
Xenosaga - Pain
Jacob Gade - Jalousie
Final Fantasy XII - Penelo's Theme
.hack//Liminality - Mai
Kirite - Promise with Winds ~ Petal's Whereabouts
Kirite - Nocturne
Super Mario Brothers - Super Mario Brothers Arrangement
Aladdin - Whole New World
Then there was an intermission where I went out and turned my phone to silent so it wouldn't ring during the concert. I had forgotten to do that earlier. Also, Chris and I entered a survey lottery competition where the winner gets a free FFXII soundtrack. That would be nice to win.
Second Half
Sailing to the World - Sailing to the World
Kirite - The Azure
Haibane Renmei - Free Bird (My favorite song there!)
Legaia Duel Legacy - Ending Theme
Chrono Cross - Radical Dreamers ~ Without Taking the Jewel ~
Colours of Life - Ferris Wheel
Shadow of the Colossus - Sunlight Earth
Camille Saint-Saens - Danse Macabre
Shoot the Violinist - Two of Us
Johanne Brahms - Hungarian Dance
Chrono Cross - Time's Scar
Tsubasa Chronicle - A Song of Storm and Fire
I'm glad I had made the time to go see this concert. I would have regretted it forever if I hadn't. It was a wonderful three hours of music and culture. I hear there's going to be another concert in April too, the 2007 'Night in Fantasia Part One', the 'Symphony of the Games'. They've split Fantasia up into two separate concerts now, one for games and one for anime. I guess that makes two more awesome evenings of fun next year. I hope Chris is up for more.