Distant Worlds - Carnegie Hall 2018

Went to Distant Worlds at Carnegie Hall yesterday. I paid $100 for my tier 2 seats. My seats are 1 level above the most expensive seats. The view was nice but my friend told me he got his for $28 on the balcony which had a pretty good view as well. It’s fine, how often will I ever go to Carnegie Hall ever again?

This has been the best distant worlds in recent memory. The audience was mature and no one cheered during the performance, it was exceptional. Usually at game concerts, people holler and cheer stupidly, ruining the experience. This time, none of that, I thoroughly enjoyed it. There was way too many FF7 songs as usual, and they picked the worst FF13 song out of all of them, which is my only complaint. The Maria/Draco song was pretty interesting. However, I did not like the female opera singers voice at all. I felt a little bit cringey when she was singing, she couldn’t hit the high notes. The video editing got a lot better. They’re using newer visuals with the upcoming games and the quality has improved a lot since many of the games are being remade for Steam. The merchandise line was terrible. They had a snake line just to see what was on sale, absolutely a disaster. After waiting 20 minutes to see what they had, I left without buying anything. Why couldn’t they hand out a list of items on sale to save everyone’s time?

The setlist was:

Battle on the Big Bridge

Cosmo Canyon

Not Alone

The Oath

Fang’s Theme

Flash of Steel

Searching for Friends

Theme of Love

Apocalypsis Noctis

Liberi Fatali

Somnus

Bombing Mission

Heavensward

Chocobo Theme

To Zanarkand

Hymn of the Fayth

Opera Scene

Main Theme

Aerith’s Theme

One Winged Angel

Piano Opera Final Fantasy Concert

Long time no see (or write). The NYC concert was held at Mason Hall at Baruch College. The concert was originally scheduled for Feb 2016 but due to VISA issues, both Nobuo Uematsu and Hiroyuki Nakayama were unable to arrive in time so they had to reschedule to Sept 2016.

They're wrapping up with the concert tour at NYC / LA.

Spoilers: 


I've previously been to Distant Worlds, so I thought it was going to be more or less the same structure. Boy was I wrong. The show was very entertaining. Nobuo and Hiroyuki were both on stage doing Q&A and they had a great sense of humor. They talked about how they met, why the Piano Opera series was created, what their impressions were of each other. So to give some background, Hiroyuki loved games when he was a kid. However, he had very strict parents that forced him to play the piano. His parents only allowed him to play games after he finished two hours of piano practice each day. Hiroyuki also said that he started to play final fantasy music in school as a performance and it helped him become very popular -- especially with the ladies. Eventually he got noticed (NOTICED BY SENPAI) and they met somehow (details I forget). When Nobuo and Hiroyuki met for the first time, Nobuo thought Hiroyuki was a very serious guy (that is not the case). Hiroyuki's impression of Nobuo? He said: "KAMI-SAMA!" and the crowd burst out laughing without the translator needing to say anything.

The reason why Piano Opera came to be was because the piano collections sheets had already existed, but Nobuo wanted to take it up a notch and make a more complex version for ambitious piano players. Hiroyuki came into the picture and arranged the Piano Opera collection, which was a more complex and harder to play variant of the original score. We also found out what each person's favorite song was, Nobuo's was Melodies of Life, Hiroyuki's is Dancing Mad. Oh yeah, there's no recording of any kind, that's why you cant find any videos on Youtube. Everyone present was very respectful and did not cheer or shout when the pianist was still playing. In fact, we all held our breath and remained still throughout the show. It's definitely different from Distant Worlds in that aspect.

Songs played: 

Prelude
Ami - VIII
Words Drowned by Fireworks - VII
Festival of the Hunt - IX
Town Medley (I,II,II)
The Man with the Machine Gun - VIII
Kefka - VI
Opening ~ Bombing Mission - VII
Cosmo Canyon - VII
Troian Beauty - IV
Theme of Love - IV - as background music during Q&A
A Melodies of Life - IX
Dancing Mad - VI - FULL 6 MINUTES NONSTOP!!!
Force Your Way - VIII
Clash on the Big Bridge - V - the big finale

Security was tight as hell too. They had at least 5 NYPD officers managing the line. There were about 150 people who had VIP tickets, and it was a brutal wait. The spot where we waited had no AC, so we were all drenched in sweat while we waited an hour in line to finally meet Nobuo. I had practiced some Japanese so I can say some words of appreciation when it was my turn. Funny how everything I learned just goes out the window when it was my turn. They surprised me with "NICE TO MEET YOU" and I immediately forgot how to say anything in Japanese. :-[

The CD I brought was for Nobuo to sign. They gave out a free picture. VIP holders also received an exclusive sampler CD.

Hope you enjoyed reading about my concert experience!

Hikaru Nara Instrumental Cover

Check out my latest video, also my first collaboration video with multiple musicians.

The death of Neopets

http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/13799/neopets-rise-and-fall/?fb=dd

Aye this was an interesting read. Who didnt play this when they were growing up in the 90s?