The 'Dear Friends' Final Fantasy Concert First Hand

Last Saturday night I had the pleasure of enjoying the "Dear Friends" concert of Final Fantasy music in Rosemont, Illinois. Composer Nobuo Uematsu is well known among game players for the intricate melodies that create the backdrop for most of the Final Fantasy titles. Even the older titles, 8-bit compositions though they were, made for evocative soundscapes. When taken into the hands of a skilled orchestra Uematsu's works are incredibly stirring pieces of music. Read on for my impressions from the start of the first U.S. concert series composed entirely of video game music. Update: 02/25 21:08 GMT by Z : Coincidentally, GamesIndustry.biz has an interview with Nobuo Uematsu available for perusal today.

The Rosemont Theatre holds over four thousand seats, and every one of them was filled for the "Dear Friends" performance on Saturday night. The concert was set to start at 8pm but the evening didn't really begin until almost 8:20, when the "Square-Enix" logo was replaced on the large video screens at the front of the theater with the image of Nobuo Uematsu walking down an aisle. Four thousand some fans leapt to their feet and applauded the entrance of the man who made the evening possible. When the composer found his seat, the Chicagoland Pops started the night off with a bang.

"Liberi Fatali" is the defining theme from the eighth game in the series, and began the night's musical selections. The choral accompaniment added to the raw energy of the piece, talented individuals who successfully evoked the emotion of the images that appeared on the screens up front. Portions of the full motion video from the game gave a visual contrast to the auditory experience. These images were alternated with camera-work showing the audience close-ups of the musicians at work, allowing individuals with seats too far away from the stage to get a good look at the artists at work.

After the explosive introduction we were introduced by conductor Arnie Roth to Gene Honda, the master of ceremonies for the evening. He commented on the momentousness of the evening, a theme which was touched on several times by speakers during the night. He then introduced the next trio of pieces and prompted more rock concert-like cheers from the audience.

Final Fantasy X's "Zanarkland" began the next trio of musical pieces, with images of Yuna offsetting the tempo of the music. The piece following that got a huge response when it was mentioned by the MC, and caused the entire crowd to grow hushed when it began. "Terra's Theme" is one of the most poignant musical selections in the Final Fantasy repertoire, and in many ways defines Final Fantasy VI as a cornerstone of the series. Similarly, the "Theme of Love" from Final Fantasy IV brought back many memories for the assembled concert-goers, the love between Cecil and Rosa a basis for future relationships in the series.

After another moment of commentary from Mr. Honda (who delighted the audience by proclaiming his gamerdom like a badge of honor), the title song of the evening began to be played. The story of Final Fantasy V's group of comrades reflected in some ways the idea behind the evening's entertainment. Later in the evening, with Mr. Uematsu on the stage, it was stated that the title of the show was meant to get across the appreciation he has for all of the many gamers and music fans alike who have made the music of Final Fantasy so well known. The concert series, he said, was meant to be a heartfelt thanks for the support the music and the series has received over the years.

Following "Dear Friends" was the peppy and dramatic "Vamo' Alla Flamenco". An extremely talented guitarist sat in with the orchestra on the title song and on the latin-accented theme from Final Fantasy IX. The powerful music played to beautiful images of the airship and the extraordinarily popular character of Vivi the Black Mage. The final piece in the pre-intermission set was "Love Grows", from Final Fantasy VIII. The beautiful music was played against the ballroom scenes between Rinoa and Squall, providing a compliment to the story unfolding on screen.

During intermission I received several compliments on my shirt. Old-skool is the best skool, apparently.

After the break they went right for the heartstrings, with the haunting Aeris's Theme from Final Fantasy VII and "Not Alone" from IX. Aeris' climactic moments played out on screen, and the piece ended as the on-screen animation pulled back to reveal the cityscape from the seventh game. It was easy to remember why VII is still one of the most popular games in the series. "Not Alone" was played to images of Yuna dancing on the water, more beautiful imagery from a snappy game. The last piece in the set was the theme from Ronfaure, an area in the online Final Fantasy XI. Despite the repetitious nature of the music it was really excellent to hear such a familiar theme done with orchestral force.

MC Honda came out for a final farewell and to introduce the last three themes for the evening. A medley from Final Fantasy I-III kicked off the set, recalling several of the truly classic elements of the series. The medley opened with the harp from the very beginning of Final Fantasy I, the crunchily 8-bit background that plays while we are introduced to the Crystals for the very first time. The medley also included the toe-tappingly excellent Chocobo theme, which elicited more than a little laughing and cheering when the first notes were played. The last "official" song of the evening was, simply, the Final Fantasy theme. Over a decade ago that theme first found it's way into the consciousness of American kids through the original NES title. In my case, I'm firmly convinced farming ogres in the woods outside of the elvish lands in FFI had something to do with the choices I was to make in my life to follow.

From the reactions of the audience that night, it was obvious that many felt the same way. When the original theme ended with a crash, the applause just went on and on and on. Mr. Uematsu took the stage to speak with the assembled and wildy cheering audience. A congenial translator passed on his questions. Aside from wanting to know if we'd had a good time (an ear threatening "YES!!" from the crowd), he asked us to respond to a few questions. First he wanted to know how far we'd come, and asked how many were locals, how many from Illinois, etc. When he reached the confines of the United States, the response was deafening. Just in the front row there were individuals who had driven from New York, Nevada, and Florida to hear the concert. Surprisingly, when he asked if there was anyone there from outside the U.S. there were a number of cheers from around the auditorium.

He thanked us all for our exuberance, stating that we needed to calm down "so that we could speak tomorrow". The atmosphere at the point in the evening was very much like a rock concert attended by thousands of adoring fans, and he seemed a little overwhelmed by the enthusiasm. His next question was to compound that issue, as he asked "If I brought the Black Mages here to the states, would you all promise to come to a concert?" Apparently there will be at least 4,400 people ready if ever rock-arranged video game music finds its way into a concert venue in the states. His last question, though, brought down the house. "Would you like to hear one more song?"

And what a song it was. They had, of course, saved the best for last. As the choir filed back onto the stage more cheering broke out. The conductor and the orchestra readied themselves and the audience grew quiet again. When the first frantic strains of "One-Winged Angel" burst into the Rosemont Theatre it was like lighting a match in the crowd. The rapt attention the audience gave to the final theme of the evening was only matched by the beauty of the skilled playing of the Pops and the enthusiasm of the choral group. One young man in particular found himself on the stage screens for some time, and the enormous grin he had on his face was a testament to the joy the group got out of the beautiful lyrics and powerful energy of the signature Final Fantasy VII piece. With one final "Sephiroth!", and with the antagonist himself looking down from the screens, the night came to an end with a flourish. When the house lights came up a lot of people looked like they were shaking themselves out of a dream, coming reluctantly back to reality.

The work of Nobuo Uematsu is challenging to listen to as a game player. It forced us to become involved in the story in a way that some of the story elements of the early games didn't. As the series progressed, as we grew older as gamers, the music developed from a supporting character into a force all its own. Game music has a wonderful familiarity to it that ensures instant appeal and enjoyment. Someone who may never set foot into a opera house would gladly hum the Mario theme on queue. The idea touched on throughout the night by the MC, the conductor, and Mr. Uematsu was the hope that this was going to be the first of many concerts to come here in the states. The experience during the evening was exciting, interesting and, I hope, a harbinger of similar events across the country.

Another review

There's another review of the concert [gamesarefun.com] over at Games Are Fun [gamesarefun.com]

Thanks!

I had tickets to that concert which I'd bought as soon as they went on sale. I'd planned for every contingency...except one. My son got sick and I had to miss the concert. Akkk! So thanks for posting this first hand account of the concert! I hope that some DVD or CD releases of the concert series in the U.S. will be available in the future. Thanks again!

..subject

amazing review :)

The Remixes, Too

And for all those, particularly NES and SNES Final Fantasy fans, who have yet to experience the many glorious remixes which players have undertaken to make especially for the 8-bit and 16-bit era games, you are heartily encouraged to visit OC Remix's Final Fantasy game music remixes [ocremix.org].

Personal favourites include Agony of Obscuration [ocremix.org] and The Atomizer [ocremix.org] for Final Fantasy VI, but the worthwhile remixes available are all in all, too long to list.

CD available?

Anywhere to get a CD? Google didn't turn up anything that I could find.

Re:CD available?

http://www.rpgfan.com/soundtracks/20020220/index.h tml this cd was from a concert in japan, but it has most of the same songs (and mostly same arrangements) plus some extra songs that weren't in the dear friends concert 8^)

Hmmm...

"Read on for my impressions from the start of the first U.S. concert series composed entirely of video game music."

Not quite the first.

http://www.minibosses.com

They've been doing video game music only concert tours for a few years. In the US too.

Fails the test...

This is another one of those events that fails the same test that Star Trek/Sci Fi conventions, Comic Book conventions, and Ham/Amatuer Radio Fests also fail.

That test, you can't explain it to your girlfriend without becoming incredible concious of her thinking you're a loser.

Re:Fails the test...

That test, you can't explain it to your girlfriend without becoming incredible concious of her thinking you're a loser.

Maybe the real test you failed is having the right girlfriend.

Dear Friends

As someone who attended, I must say that the concert was an amazing experience. With the exception of a few songs (specifically terra's theme, it seemed like they could have done a bit better job with the arrangement), everything else was held to a very high standard of quality. Of course, it was great to see the Nobuo there, walking around and shaking hands.

Never would I have thought that a rather official and main-stream venue would be playing some of the defining music from video games. It was quite the experience, and a rather large step in the acceptance of meaningful video games as art.

Ya know, this is getting annoying

I do love final fantasy, especially the music that comes with them. So, tell me this: Why the hell aren't there any CD's out in the US with the music? They do freaking concerts in real concert halls, which sell out in minutes online, but there's no legal or professionally mixed release out there? Come on, Square, wake up already!

So is this "tour" going to - uh, tour?

According to the Dear Friends website [square-enix-usa.com] this concert is going to go on "tour" in America.

So far it's hit Los Angeles, California and Chicago, Illinois. Apparently is scheduled to be shown at San Francisco, California on March 7th.

And... that's it. No more dates are listed.

So - uh, is this tour ever going to actually tour? Or is it really hitting two locations (since this Chicago concert marked the "beginning" of the tour, after the success of the Los Angeles one)? I've gone searching, and so far those two concerts (Chicago and San Fransisco) are the only two I could find.

I'd love to go if they ever hit the northeast, but so far, it doesn't sound like they're going to. In fact, it sounds like this is a two-stop tour, and then that's it. There's really no information on what's coming up.

encore always

you can tell that they always will play "one winged angel" because the choir will come back 2 songs before the last. theyre only used for the first song and the last.

Excellent Review!

I drove down from La Crosse, WI to see the concert, and loved it. The reviewer captures the significance of the event that I'm sure just about every one in attendance was feeling. It was truly a surreal, but thoroughly enjoyable experience.

It was an awesome experience. I recommend anyone who likes the music to try to attend one of these concerts. And make sure to share it with a few friends if you can.

You can be sure that if The Black Mages play a show within 500 miles of me, I'll be there.

Uematsu

I have to say, even though I haven't played many of the FF games, I really admire Uematsu as a composer and musician. His music is so incredibly good, and I love listening to it. It makes great study music when I'm reading or writing something.

Review from a Non-Gamer?

Curious to see if there are any reviews available of the concert by a person who has never played a Final Fantasy game. Those that have played a few games of the series will be predisposed to like the concerts. I'd love to read some reviews by a reviewer who is more objective.

Audience Impressed the Orchestra

I got to see the show, and it was well worth it.

One thing which I really liked was watching the orchestra react to the audience. The Chicagoland Pops orchestra is pretty talented and plays a wide range of classical music, but you could guess many of these musicians weren't familiar with FF or the music before. They played well, but they were blown away by multiple standing ovations after the more popular songs (like Aeris' Theme). Most theatergoes to the Rosemont Theatre to see the Pops perform are probably enthusiastic and polite, but not jumping to their feet clapping and cheering like crazy.

It really seemed to give a boost to the musicians that the audience really connected to the music they were performing. Many of them seemed to really be enjoying the concert as much as we were. It's amazing music to seen performed somewhere other than the speaker on your TV set, and really seemed to fit well with an orchestra and an audience.

It was great!

I was there too. We drove from Minneapolis. Wow, what a great concert. I expected to hear music from the opera part of FFIII (FFVI in Japan), but alas... I suppose it would have been a little bit lame since operas have words and 16 bit FFIII had "ooo ooo ooo ooooooo"'s.

I've just been looking for reviews on the show. Not much for reviews, though there are a few previews. I've been wanting to hear a bit about what traditional symphony music types thought about this show. So far all I've got is that last year in LA a flutist called it "muzak"... still haven't googled what that is supposed to mean.

I was a little dissapointed that they had a PA system there. Other symphony halls I've been to didn't use a PA, and I think they sounded a lot better, not to mention they were getting some bass feedback.

But what a great experience! I love those games and I've always loved the music, even when it was 8-bit and maximum 30 s for a loop. It was great to hear it in the "real world"!

East Coast?

When are they coming to the East Coast??? I'm 15 mins outside New York, but I'd gladly drive up to Boston in order to enjoy this concert.

ff concerts are cool

funny, i listened to a different final fantasy concert recording (that i found here [novatina.com] earlier today

Kudos

I just wanted to say what a great review. Never have I read such a review that painted such a vivid picture in my mind. I felt like I was at the concert! Well done!

The shirt!

Lol, omg. I was one of the people who complimented on your shirt, Zonk. I think you were walking down from the middle isle and you turned to your right, and I was just like,"woah, nice shirt, man.". I was with friend. Remember me?

Re:Zonk

There's no L in Zanarkand But there is in 'Loser!' j/k... but mod me down anyway :)

Re:8-bit masterpieces.

I can still hear the Zelda 'combat music' in my head at times. It certainly isn't because it is good.

To be fair to FF... the music is good for video games. But, I condsider it to be wanna-be classical for the most part (at least the older FF... been a very long time...)

Granted, with the repetition of old ideas in the top 40 countdown today, FF might be a step up from what most are used to listening to :)

Now, if I could only get Zelda out of my head...