For those who missed the Dear Friends tour

And for anyone that missed the Video Games Live concert at the Nokia Center in Los Angeles on Oct 19th... shame on Square for not letting them use FF game clips on the video display behind the orchestra.

When announced that Square wasn't going to allow it... there was quite the resounding BOO from the entire concert hall.

Shame on Square.... SHAME!

Unfortunately, Square Enix knows that it can do that, get boo'd, and still take your money when its next title releases. :)

So basically, tough shit.

Shame!!! WB tsheeley

I attended the Distant Worlds concert in Rosemont last night, and here’s my summary of the concert.

While many things were different about Distant Worlds and the Dear Friends concert, some things remained the same. The three screens used to show that audience visuals to go with the score returned; although, they did use the videos differently. The Final Fantasy VIII battle theme (Don’t Be Afraid) was timed to the battle and escape from the mechanical spider towards the beginning of the game, which was awesome. During “Theme of Love” from Final Fantasy IV, they used nothing but cinema scenes from the DS version of the game that has not been released in North America. The two chocobo songs featured different chocobo montages, which were just hysterical. There were also many other memorable game moments throughout the different pieces played.

I was very excited to see that there was a Distant Worlds concert CD (not an original soundtrack of the songs from the concert) that was performed by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. It’s a high quality CD and not recorded during their concert, so there’s no background noise such as: clapping, coughing, people yelling (which is good cause we were loud). The CD is great too now having listened to it all the way through.

All the pieces played are basically listed above, with the exception of the first en-core piece from Final Fantasy VI “Terra.” My favorite pieces were “To Zanarkand,” “Memoro de la Stono - Distant Worlds,” and “Opera (Maria and Draco).” “To Zanarkand” fully orchestrated is just too damn pretty for its own good. The other noticeable difference between Dear Friends and Distant Worlds, is that they hired singers to perform some of the pieces. I liked “Distant Worlds,” but the Opera piece was absolutely amazing. The only piece besides the en-cores to receive a standing ovation. The piece has only been played two other times; once at the Voices concert in Japan and at the More Friends concert in L.A.. Anrie Roth (conductor/arranger of some of the pieces) also let it slip that the Black Mages also recorded a version of the Opera piece for their newly finished third album. Nobuo wanted to keep the tracks hush-hush ... opps XD.

I did pick up the program and CD, and would be willing to scan both the program and the booklet if people wanted to see them. Just let me know and I’ll go to my friends house sometime this week and mooch her scanner.

Those who didn’t get to go and still want to, they do plan on taking the concert around the world. So there will be more shows; however, this was the only North American destination at the moment.

I'd like it if after all this, they release a seperate album with the different vocalists' renditions of Distant Worlds. Not only would it be nice to hear, but Leanne Araya's version from the Rosemont concert just sounds superior to the version on the CD. On the plus side, at least both of the aforementioned versions are in coherent english.

The volume levels for Leanne singing were off where we were sitting. The orchestra and the choir completely overpowered her, as hard as that is to imagine because she was really good.