Slashdot Mirror
Final Fantasy Concert Series Coming to the States
On February 19th in Chicago, Illinois, a concert series titled "Dear Friends" will kick off a U.S. tour. The music? Music from the Final Fantasy series performed by orchestra. From the press release: "The first FINAL FANTASY concert in the U.S. brought fans from far and wide together in Los Angeles to share in an unforgettable musical experience," said Ichiro Otobe, president and COO of Square Enix, Inc. "We are pleased to announce that, due to the overwhelmingly positive response, a North American tour will soon bring the emotionally moving and powerful scores to fans across the country." This is personally very exciting for me. See you there!
Incidentally, if you read the article, you would know that FINAL FANTASY must be capitalized every single time that you say FINAL FANTASY. sheesh
feh. stuff.
What? No con association? How bout getting in free if you dress up like your fav charachter?
Party at O'zorgnax's Pub! Buy me a Slurmtini aye?
I could have sworn there was already one concert with that name already in the last year or two-- Yeah, here we go, an announcement from quite awhile ago.. right here.
The compositions in many of the FF games are really top-notch; there are a few off-beat tunes (think the Chochobo scenes) but for the most part it isn't your dime-a-minute loop-based stuff but moving, uplifting, really cinematic kind of music. Performance by a full orchestra? Oh yeah, I'll even buy that.
I think it's great to see video game music finally getting the (fairly) widespread critical acclaim it has so long deserved. RPGs have had awesome music for year (Secret of Mana springs to my mind), but now it seems people are really starting to appreciate the music for its own sake.
Maybe the consoles of the future will offer as much scope for awesome sound as they currently do for the visuals.
apterous.org
I am left wondering if they will name their next concert tour final final fantasy, or final fatasy concert two; and then I ask myself why I am thinking about such a thing in the first place.
As a computer geek - especially one who has played damn near every Finaly Fantasy game - I'm thrilled as it is by the opportunity to hear these great soundtracks in a medium other than MIDI. I don't care how far the technology develops, nothing beats a live orchestra in a real concert hall, period.
As a trained classical musician living and [trying to] freelance in Chicago, I'm thrilled even more (and would get a nice early Christmas by being called to play said gig... ahh, one can only dream...)
Too bad the article says nothing of who actually arraanged these works for orchestra... (To the Slashdot crowd who may not know what I mean - I ask who actually transcribed the full orchestral score and individual parts from the MIDI original.) Was it Nobuo Uematsu himself? Being a great composer (and in his genre, he certainly is, IMHO) is one thing, while being a great arranger/orchestrator is an entirely different matter. His stock would go waaaaay up in my book if he did both....
I hope the land around you yields, a crop like all the other fields, and then your waiting might make sense...
I would have gone to the LA show had I the time and money, but I was in avionics training on the other side of the country. Now, though, I should be able to make it if they come here. I own most of the OSTs and a lot if the Piano Works, which I'm learning to play.
"What I cary in this box is your utter subjugation."
There maybe nothing to see, but i'm sure there's plenty to be heard.
Here's a link to more information about the first concert in LA earlier this year.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
Nobuo Uematsu is one of the best composers of the present time. This is not about a bunch of video game fanboys with too much time and money on their hands, this is about a bunch of music afficionados going to a concert.
What is stupid or gay about a bunch of music afficionados going to a concert? If you think of the music as separate from the game, that's whay it becomes. And yes, Nobuo Uematsu's music is good enough to stand on its own and not as part of Final Fantasy.
Before I stopped downloading music (for ethical reasons) I used to download and listen to Final Fantasy music all the time, while I wasn't playing the game. And I don't even like Final Fantasy that much.
So, before you think that this will just be a bunch of people who live in their parents' basement dressed up like Cloud, think again. It really is good music.
Le français vous intéresse?
I hope this tour is as much of a success as the original concert. If so some of us would love to see a concert of the FF music over here in England!
I'd keep expecting to be jumped by monsters at random intervals during the performance.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
to kill off John Williams before he writes another stirring brass fanfare. Let's do a test. Fire up "Return to Zork." Listen carefully to the music during the opening scene, flying through the mountains. Now, grab your Harry Potter DVD, close your eyes, and listen to the main theme. Notice any similarities? Let's get him before he starts taking FF music.
Consciousness is a myth. Trust me.
In other news Metallica is about to do a world tour playing music from PacMan
The belief in a biblical god is an ignorant one
To see, or not to see, that is the question.
liqbase
Oh wait, I can get experience that way!
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
I have ZERO chance of convincing any type of girl that I typically go out with to come along. Calling girl: "Hey you want to see an orchestra concert?"..."Sure that would be fun, what is it?"...."Final Fantas..."++ATH0 "Hello?"
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
This reminds me of the concerts that Boston Pops with John Williams used to do with his movie scores. They would show a scene from Jaws without the music and then the orchestra would perform. It really showed how important a good score can be - even if it is just background music.
I've been listening to FF music for about 7 years now. I actually have a copy of "Kefka's Domain" (the OST for FF3, as it's the American version) that I used to listen to on a regular basis. Aside from the game OSTs available for purchase, there already exist a fair amount of Final Fantasy music that was recorded by orchestra. There are several "Piano Collection" compilations (where pieces are performed solo on Piano), as well as some strange remix collections, but my personal favorite (and I still listen to it regularly) is a collection called "Grand Finale", which consists of orchestral renderings of Final Fantasy VI (III)'s tracks. They are all great, although some people have questioned the use of certain instruments here and there (bagpipes on Relm's track?). If you're real hard core, try to find the Dream Oath Opera (from FFVI)... A 20-minute or so version of it exists out there somewhere, complete with Japanese vocals. Simply amazing.
http://www.mijit.ws/www.mijit.ws
If you guys like final fantasy music or any other kinda of music from video games, http://www.ocremix.org/ has alot arrangements of different video games tunes. Don't let the name fool you, it's not filled with those lame techno remixes, it's done by tons of different people with too much time on their hands. Some kinda suck, but some of the remixes are done very well. It's worth a look, imo.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
As awful and nerdy as it may be, even for slashdot, I'd probably so see this if they did it somewhere near Louisiana. Final Fantasy was the first RPG I ever played, and staying up until past midnight on the New Year's eve after the Christmas on which I receive it is one of my fonder memories. I just wanna feel the tingle of hearing a real orchestra play the fight music, just once.
i use linux and windows oh god how can i have an opinion
do de do- do da de- de de do
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
On the one hand, it's great that orchestral music is getting acclaim within the geek crowd, even if it is based on video games. I never caught the FF bug, but so many of my friends did, and in college the music was good background while I did other things in the apartment (generally not at all related to the degree I got in music performance).
On the other hand, RPG music on the whole tends to be overly thematic and soundtrackesque. Very emotional stuff - it doesn't make you think, it makes you sweat. Maybe that's a good release for geeks who think all day, but it compares to 200-years-dead-white-guy classical music in much the same way John Williams does... slightly dumbed down from the original to appeal to the masses.
On the gripping hand, it doesn't matter. People listen to whatever floats their boat, period. Personally I'd much rather attend this then shell out three times as much for kazillionth-row seating at a Britney Spears concert!
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
No really... is it?
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
Ever wonder why you don't get laid? This is it... Right here.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
To C or not to C, as in Johnny C Bad from FFVI - Kefka's Domain. ;)
It seemed more appropriate.
Within about 45 seconds of seeing this slashdot story I was already typing in my credit card info for 2 VIP tickets. I'm glad to see they're starting out in my home town (Chicago).
Normally, I balk at the high prices at the local blockbuster, so I hope my girlfriend understands why I had to pay damn near $300 for VIP tickets. I'm always trying to share my passion for videogames with her, so I guess a nice dinner and a night at the opera will do the trick.
Good use of a christmas bonus.
for great justice, this sig has been moved
I enjoyed it immensely. I can still conjure up some of the theme music in my head. I'll be dragging my wife out to this if it comes near me...
It is interesting that video games are starting to get credit for their music, from more traditional sources. For the longest time they always put Video game music with the same level as garage bands. But pieces like the Super Mario theme song will stay in a persons head for the rest of their life and remind them of the childhood and it is still a catchy little tune. Many times when I hum a piece from from a video game people tend to have a better connection with that then if I did from a song of the time. Heck whenever I complete something hard I usually hum the final fantasy victory song (Do De Do- Do- Da- De- Do De Do) and almost everyone knows that I completed something hard (sometimes the geekiest among use will wave anything that look remotely like a sword up and down almost 2 dimensionally)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
When I played Final Fantasy 1, I knew the franchise would explode into tons of sequels. I've never met anyone who can predict what video game will be fun like me. In a lot of ways it sucks being able to see 10 years down the pipe. Most people just wait and are suprised by what video game comes out. I can already visualize the next big video game, but I need to wait until someone makes it. And mostly people make games almost on target, only to fail on some detail that would otherwise have made their game a hit.
Yes, life is boring in the tech job, when I should be heading up a game design team.
www.geocities.com/James_Sager2/work
God spoke to me
I can't afford tickets yet and now this gets announced on Slashdot? Crap.
Um...this concert is going to suck. You shouldn't go. Rosemont is a bad place. If you go there, you'll die. Um...I heard the theater has this really big bear that eats anyone who walks in.
No? Damn.
If you're seriously interested, find a copy of one or more of the Bach Cello Suites. Listen, keeping in mind that it's just one guy doing all that. Check out this essay for clarification of the issues involved in a successful performance of said works. If there are words you don't understand in context, look them up. You'll learn a lot about why Bach was a musical genius and why his works are still valid and unsurpassed nearly two hundred years later.
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
I'll go if they come near the East Coast. I'd be even more enthusiastic about a Black Mages tour. FF + Heavy rock? Live performance with Nobuo Uematsu at the kyeboards? Yeah!!!
:)
Still, as long as they play X, S, T, L1+T, L1+S, X, S, T, L1+X, O, X, S, X, I'll be happy to go.
(I'll send a stack of Ghysal Greens to the first nerd who recognizes that.
I never could see the attaction to these fancy dice games. I find them quite frankly mind numbingly boring. The music is the only redeeming quality about them.
You might be interested (if you haven't heard about it already) in a site called OverClocked Remix, which has remixes (in many, MANY different styles... instrumental, techno, rock, even rap, you name it) of video game music available to download. All of the music went through a judging panel before it was posted to the site, so 90% of it is some very good stuff. Take a listen.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Since he's obviously stupid with money, maybe Zachurm can get them to perform on his island.
FINAL FANTASY Debuts First Orchestral Concert in North America Celebrating Video Game Music
LOS ANGELES, Calif., February 18, 2004 - Square Enix U.S.A., Inc. ("Square Enix U.S.A."), the publisher of Square Enix(TM) interactive entertainment products in North America, announced today that they will present the first FINAL FANTASY® symphony concert in the U.S. on Monday, May 10, 2004, at the prestigious Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Calif. The performance will feature music from Square Enix's world-renowned FINAL FANTASY video game series, performed by the acclaimed Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. This exciting event will be taking place during the week of E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), the largest interactive entertainment trade show in the U.S.
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If you're a musician yourself, you might also be interested in the fan-arranged Final Fantasy sheet music at http://www.nobuouematsu.com
Not just piano stuff; they have a few full orchestra pieces, and some percussion pieces, as well as solos for various instruments (flute, clarinet, guitar, etc).
-- Qirien, Academy of Defenestration
"Who do you want to defenestrate today?"
I was just reading about the wild popularity of not only music from the Final Fantasy series, but music from many of the best game series in Japan, in Chris Kohler's excellent book Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. And now to hear that it is coming to my sweet home Chicago! Sweeeeet!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
really wanting to go and knowing that the real name of this show should be Birth Control World Tour, might be so geeky that my normally geek-loving wife would cringe.
You can find soundtracks extracted from SNES games at zophar.net. These are the raw spc files extracted from the roms, they sound exactly like the SNES music digitizer output.
http://www.zophar.net/zsnes/spc/
Players are here (get the winamp pluging):
http://www.zophar.net/utilities/spc.html
Be sure to check out Final Fantasy III (6 Japan) and Chrono Trigger.
Simple enough. Just take an airship to the Chicago show in February!
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
I dought anyone will have any chance of taking any girl to this kind of concert. It's going to be packed full of fat, sweaty nerds. It'll be worse than the opening night of Star Wars Episode 1.
I can't believe anyone would want to go to this, no matter how cool you think Final Fantasy is.
I've been waiting for something like this to happen for years now. I was excited earlier this year when I heard about the first concert in LA during E3, but I wasn't able to make it out there, as much as I wanted to. Now it's just down the road!
I remember just a couple years back one of my computer programming teachers gave us extra credit for going to the local symphony's production of Orff's Carmina Burana. After the show, the conductor (whose name I've completely and utterly forgotten) was hanging around talking with everyone, and I got a chance to speak to her. We discussed the night's performance, and eventually the conversation came around to what sorts of performances I (being probably the youngest voluntary audience member there, as far as I saw) would suggest. Now, this is a fairly small orchestra (Springfield (IL) Symphony Orchestra), so I figured that even though the odds are pretty slim that my suggestion would be heeded, it would be worth a shot just to see what reaction I could get. I proceeded to explain to her that I would love nothing more than to see/hear a live orchestral presentation of music from Final Fantasy. The conductor seemed like she was intrigued, but I assume that was just her being polite. Anyway, I'm not claiming credit for this (obviously), but just wanted to say it's nice to see that I'm not alone.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -- Groucho Marx
The key word is "tour".
The "Music From Final Fantasy" concert was a one time show, and was successful enough to spawn a tour that could reach those of us lucky to not be living in LA.
I know a few folks from local orchestras who are looking for interesting new things to do, to try to expand their audience beyond the normal concert-going crowd (i.e. old people who only listen to music that's been around for 250+ years).
To do it right, though, would require two things that I frankly don't know where to get them.
One: Permission, and royalties if applicable. For those who don't know, generally orchestral performances and plays, at least where the composer or author is still alive, generally have to be paid for. In addition to the obvious expense of sheet music and those massive conductors' scorebooks, you usually have to pay the composer/author for the privilege of performing their work publicly. It's not often more than a few hundred dollars, but since Nobuo Uematsu is still alive, he deserves his kickbacks. Where would the money go?
Two: The scores themselves. A fair amount of Googling/eBaying/Amazoning (whatever) hasn't turned up anything promising. I've found piano music, and programs that claim to turn MIDI files into sheet music, but nothing on the scale of "click here to buy a full score," which you'd need to pull off something on this grand a scale.
Uhm, ok... so they played Los Angeles... now they're going to play Chicago...
So playing a second show in another city makes it a "series"? That seems like rather Clintonian hair-splitting. Or are they really planning a TOUR of the U.S.? If so, it sure as hell hasn't been mentioned here or in the article...
from the not-bad game, Seiken Densetsu 3 aka Secret of Mana 2. The soundtrack was tremendous, and still is. You can get it at Zophars from the link the guy gave earlier.
For people who would like to hear orchestral Final Fantasy but don't live in the States (i.e. me :( ) there are lots of excellent CDs on Amazon and stuff. My recommendation is Final Fantasy Potion; truly relaxing music.
...I want to see it again! I didnt' think I'd enjoy all the songs because I am not heavily into Final Fantasy, but boy, was it great. Nothing like hearing Aeris' theme or the Ron. theme from FFXI Online in a music hall.
We also got a special treat by hearing "Sephiroth" which is to be used in the upcoming FFVII movie
My wife sang in the LOTR series when it opened in Baltimore. The show was very near sold out (it may have been sold out at the end) and it was only a tuesday and wednesday apperance. There was a large mix of usual choral arts and symphony patrons and also LOTR fans. I don't know how big the fanbase of FF is, but I imagine that they'll get a lot of regualr symphony patrons as well as fans and should do well.
you had me rather confused for a second... although Yo Yo Ma could probably tear it up, given a strat and a week or two to pick it up. :)
Luckily I am a little on the inside here because I work for one of the orchestras who is going to be doing one of the FF shows, I'm not sure of all the exact cities (i know a few of them, but its policy to wait for the press releases) but this announcement came out a little weird to all the masses because we are currently working out our last details like a couple others orchestras are.
With chicago's show being in Feb (less than 2 months away) they had to announce it now before everyone else was done planning because its coming up so soon for them and they needed to get underway with ticket sales.
The rest of us will be coming soon on the announcements, but just to clarify, yes it is going to be more than 1 show.
I paid $150 for two tickets to "The Music of the Lord of the Rings", and it was a major disappointment. The orchestra was under-rehearsed, with several noticable flubbed notes and a lifeless performance. But mainly the evening was disappointing because it was in a crappy venue, the Auditorium Theater. It looks great, but there was no shell behind the orchestra, and the sound was weak. A 120 piece orchestra should have the ability to get loud at moments, and the crappy venue robbed me of that experience. The whole show lacked the dynamics of the film score. If the show had been in Orchestra Hall or the Chicago Opera House, or if the cheap bastards who put on the show had bothered to rent a bandshell, it would have been a lot better.
So be careful. This sounds like the old cash-in. You're going to hear a second-string orchestra with maybe one full rehersal of the material, in a acoustically dead venue designed for amplified music playing music they couldn't give a shit about.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
I had an mp3 somewhere of the Pops playing a final fantasy piece. If it was actually them that was pretty cool
Tibbon
tibbon.com
This is probably gonna garner some flames, so Commence Primary Ignition....
Square-Enix is a good game company. They've put out some good things over the years. Heck, I was one of the (few) people who liked the Final Fantasy movie. I thought it was great! But SE's success didn't start with the movie, or even with FF7. It started with FF. That's right, just plain Final Fantasy.
I've played the version of FF that's been released for the GBA, and I tell you, this is RPGs as I remember them. You can clearly see where Richard Garriot got his influences for Ultima from. FF1 is fast-paced, has a great storyline, and makes you pay attention to the things that matter; at some point, levels and gil are secondary because, dude, you're SAVING the WORLD!
Let's hit Rewind for a moment. Back to FF7, which is arguably THE archetype for all console RPGs since. This game made Square the talk of even casual gamers and made people really start turning their heads to look over at Japan and wonder what's brewing over there. Suddenly, Final Fantasy isn't just a (unfortunately-named) series of games. It's verging on a phenomenon. A lot of things contributed to it, including the artwork, the storylines, and -- of course -- the music. (If you do not feel the urge to shed a tear listening to Aeris' death theme, you have no soul. J/k. ^^ )
Moving forward, we have FF8, something unique in console RPGs: a strong love story. And then FF9: strong, powerful cinematics.
Can you see what trend Square/SE is making? Nobody really did, I guess, so nobody's really to blame.
Now we're at FFX. No real FMV cinematic cutscenes here, most everything is done in the engine. And it's gorgeous. Like any FF title it has a massive epic storyline, a cast of a dozen unique characters, strong emotions, gorgeous music, and recurring themes. And not much else. Oops. Somewhere in there they kinda forgot there was supposed to be a game....
They sort of made up for it with FFX-2, but the damage had already been done. It was no longer about playing a game. It was about EXPERIENCING FINAL FANTASY. FF wasn't a franchise anymore, it was something unique to itself, something powerful that was greater than any single person or group of people. At least to SE's mind. And this came to it's greatest expression in *puts on the high-temp entry suit* Final Fantasy Online, AKA FFXI.
In most Skinner Box MMORPGs, the goal is to level up, make gil, fight notorious monsters, earn prestige, and get gear. This is true with FFXI, but the level grind, the farming grind, and the NM grind are so onerous, that it's the bloody Iron Man Triathalon of MMO's. It's like SE purposely went out of their way to make it the most onerous MMO out there. It's gorgeous visually, yes, and the music is top-notch and the writing is really good in a lot of places. But in all that grandeur, there's not much room for the player. Essentially, what SE has said is that the reward for playing Final Fantasy is that you are playing Final Fantasy.
Let's hit 'Play' again and go back to FF: Dawn of Souls. I managed to get to the bonus dungeons of FF1, and was loking forward to seeing what they would bring. If these were anything like the expansions for Ultima 7 then there would be new puzzles, new challenges, new gear, and new bosses to fight. Heh, I was mostly right.
Suddenly, all the fast paced, smooth, seamless progress I'd made in the game thus far ground to a sudden screeching jarring halt. Five minutes into the Earthgift Shrine, I was wondering why it was so annoying. Fifteen minutes in, I was wondering what had happened to the game I had been playing. It was an utter mental chore to get through the Shrine. And then to find out that there were FOUR bosses in the Shrine... and to defeat each one you had to go through the Shrine again for EACH ONE.... Ooh. That hurt. That really hurt.
So what had happened? It had been going so smoothly, so cool! The game was fun and fast
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
For the love of God, someone mod Hognoxious up.
Hamaguchi san the same arranger for the los angeles show is the arranger.
Video games is where it is at? Metallica actually might devlop an even bigger fan base if they covered video game music.
From what I saw at the LA show it is not your typical concert. There are some amazing things to be said for stunning visuals combined with a lighting show, a full orchestra and a choir. You actually might make her cry.
This is no John Williams music. We are talking stunning visuals, amazing lighting, a full orchestra, a choir. Welcome to the 21st century.
Come join the rest of us. I am so excited.
This is the way most of these venues are set up. Unfortunately whether it is ticketmaster or tickets.com. All of these agencies regardless charge a convenience fee. People just don't go to the box office anymore. You should still go to the show. Ticketmaster has nothing to do with the show "Dear Friends- Music from FINAL FANTASY".
I think that you are just a hater. Do you really think that Wada san has anything to do with this tour? Do you really think the president of such a huge company would promote such an idea. Wouldn't you think that someone in the marketing department or someone close to the fans of Square Enix would promote such an idea after the reaction from fans in LA. Stop hating! You really are uninformed and you lash out at a company that is taking risks to bring something new to the fans. Do you know of any other companies doing what they are doing? Note: You should read the press release instead of just the headlines.