First U.S. Final Fantasy Concert Announced

Carlos Rodriguez writes "I just read at Games Are Fun that Square Enix has officially announced the first U.S.-based Final Fantasy Concert. Entitled 'Dear Friends', it will take place in Los Angeles at the Walt Disney Concert Hall this May 10th, and will feature melodies from the entire series composed and arranged by Nobuo Uematsu. This is the first Final Fantasy music event since 'Final Fantasy 20020220' took place on February 20th, 2002 and the first official Final Fantasy concert to take place outside Japan... It looks like fun! Anybody is planning to attend?"

Will there be a CD from the live performance?

[darkmayo]

Would love to go to something like this but it will never happen. A chance to hear some of these great themes, songs and what not played out by a live orchestra would be great.

Some of those songs always give me a nice feeling when I hear them(Crystal Theme for example)

Re:I would love to go

[Meiyo Neko]

Nobuo Uematsu makes the best background music.
It's gotten to the point where I measure the amount of time I've been studying for an exam in FF CDs.

Re:I would love to go

[DLWormwood]

Tom, is that you? [kuro5hin.org]

John could hear the ghost of video game music from the kid's headphones. He wasn't actually playing games -- John had checked on that personally -- he was just listening to the soundtracks. That was only the most superficial evidence of Tom's deeply flawed psychology, but John was the only one who seemed concerned.

Not that I should criticize... To my horror, I recognized the music some music from FF playing in a software store the other day... The horror was from remembering that it was from the Auction House in FF 3/6j. I haven't played that since high school, yet I remembered listening to that melody for hours on end just to get Magicite shards...

Re:flamebait

[Mr. Piddle]

Am I the only one that can't stomach music that's been so commercially manufactured like this.

It depends. Game and movie "mood music" is always terrible (like with porno music, you have to wonder why they even bother). However, especially with the more recent game consoles, some of the music in modern games is absolutely amazing and can compare favorably to well-regarded classical music. I remember one song from FF8 that not only set the mood perfectly but it was hauntingly good and reflects highly on the person who composed it.

Re:BFD

[Mr. Piddle]

Classical is mostly what I call things that are both good and not popular (the exact opposite of modern "pop" music, by definition). It is extremely broad in scope covering everything from Vivaldi (over 400 years ago) to, well, Final Fantasy (last year). Also, not only does "Classical" span at least four centuries, it spans every populated continent on Earth but with a concentration on Europe, including Russia. One reason there is no "bad" Classical music is, simply, that everyone has stopped listening to what wasn't good (i.e., history has filtered out all the "one hit wonder" composers leaving us with Bach, for example).

Great stuff.

[CashCarSTAR]

This stuff takes up permament places in my playlist. I have a good sound system..a lot of stuff doesn't stand up to the close scrutiny, but the amount of depth in these songs sure do, especially the newer ones (see X).

If you want to check it out, check out Someday The Dream Will End, or Auron's Theme from FF X. Just amazing music.