Oh My Hero...
So I drove down to Atlanta this past weekend for the Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy symphony concert. Fun! Met up with a bunch of people from the Talking Time forums for dinner and the concert and drinks, good times were had by all. Good to see more of people I've been talking to for years; we'll have to meet up again at Dragon*Con.
We ate at a place called Flip Burger, which really wasn't very good at handling a 15-person party, but had tasty food. I had a shockingly spicy chocolate mole milkshake and a chorizo burger with a poached egg on it, plus some good beer-battered onion rings.
The concert itself was pretty great. Evidently Arnie Roth (who puts it together and conducts) likes FFVIII a little more than most people, but it's still all good music. They also did a new arrangement of JENOVA from FFVII which - well, really isn't a very orchestral sort of piece, but it was a valiant attempt. Let's see, I don't have the program with me, but I know we also got a I-III medley, Dear Friends from V, Terra from VI, the opening from VII, Liberi Fatali, Fisherman's Horizon, and Man with a Machine Gun from VIII, Vamo alla Flamenco from IX, TO Zanarkand from X, and Memoro de la Stono from XI. He also stuck in two pieces from XIII (by Hamauzu) - Fabula Nova Crystallis and Blinded by Light. Also one of Uematsu's new pieces for XIV. And the full version (in English) of the Opera scene from VI, which is always totally amazing in concert. Oh, and a Chocobo medley, which was lots of fun.
Nobuo himself was there for the concert, though I didn't spring for the super-expensive "meet and greet" tickets that you need for signing and so on. But we got to see him on stage, and he came up to actually join the choir for the requisite encore of One-Winged Angel. Which despite being hideously over-exposed is still a pretty sweet concert piece, and Uematsu is adorable.
So yeah, that was pretty fantastic. Now all I need is an east coast Black Mages concert. ;)
We ate at a place called Flip Burger, which really wasn't very good at handling a 15-person party, but had tasty food. I had a shockingly spicy chocolate mole milkshake and a chorizo burger with a poached egg on it, plus some good beer-battered onion rings.
The concert itself was pretty great. Evidently Arnie Roth (who puts it together and conducts) likes FFVIII a little more than most people, but it's still all good music. They also did a new arrangement of JENOVA from FFVII which - well, really isn't a very orchestral sort of piece, but it was a valiant attempt. Let's see, I don't have the program with me, but I know we also got a I-III medley, Dear Friends from V, Terra from VI, the opening from VII, Liberi Fatali, Fisherman's Horizon, and Man with a Machine Gun from VIII, Vamo alla Flamenco from IX, TO Zanarkand from X, and Memoro de la Stono from XI. He also stuck in two pieces from XIII (by Hamauzu) - Fabula Nova Crystallis and Blinded by Light. Also one of Uematsu's new pieces for XIV. And the full version (in English) of the Opera scene from VI, which is always totally amazing in concert. Oh, and a Chocobo medley, which was lots of fun.
Nobuo himself was there for the concert, though I didn't spring for the super-expensive "meet and greet" tickets that you need for signing and so on. But we got to see him on stage, and he came up to actually join the choir for the requisite encore of One-Winged Angel. Which despite being hideously over-exposed is still a pretty sweet concert piece, and Uematsu is adorable.
So yeah, that was pretty fantastic. Now all I need is an east coast Black Mages concert. ;)