Distant Worlds

On Friday and Saturday night (May 6 and 7), the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) performed Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy, an international concert tour highlighting music from the incredibly popular Final Fantasy video game RPG franchise. The conductor was Grammy Award winner Arnie Roth.
This concert was a big treat for me as I’ve been a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series (both the games and the music) since I was a kid. I grew up playing the games and buying the soundtracks. The first and last time any sort of Final Fantasy concert hit Atlanta was in 2005, the «Dear Friends» tour, also conducted by Arnie Roth and performed by the ASO. I attended that concert and still remember how memorable it was. It took six years for the music of Final Fantasy to hit Atlanta again, but this time was different: legendary composer Nobuo Uematsu was in attendance!
I found out about the concert through a Facebook advertisement and bought tickets three months in advance. The concert sold out fast. In bigger cities, Final Fantasy concerts sell out in a matter of hours. The ASO was offering «VIP» tickets, at hundreds of dollars each, to sit among the first rows and meet Nobuo-​san himself.
Outside the symphony hall, there were overpriced souvenirs for sale: CDs, DVDs, t-​shirts, and programs. A glossy Distant Worlds program, probably 20 pages or so, was $ 25. Jeez.
The entire show lasted about two hours with a short intermission. A total of 19 songs were performed. The ASO was accompanied by the Georgia Tech Chamber Choir, a guitar soloist, and three opera singers (soprano, tenor, and bass). Like the Dear Friends tour in 2005, the ASO made use of screens above the stage to project video, images, and artwork from the Final Fantasy series as the songs were played. Some of the song selections were different from 2005, including new tunes from Final Fantasy XIII and XIV. The videos were also better: more scenes, artwork by Yoshitaka Amano (new), and mashups designed just for the concert.
The concert started off with the intro to Final Fantasy VIII («Liberi Fatali») and the FF victory theme. A female vocalist, Beverly Blouin, performed a solo from FFXI («Memoro de la Stono — Distant Worlds») and a male guitarist performed solos for «Dear Friends» (FFV) and «Vamo’ alla Flamenco» (FFIX). The guitarist missed two notes near the end of «Vamo’ alla Flamenco.» Still a solid performance, though.
During the second half of the show, there was a special «Chocobo Medley,» accompanied with a video mashup of various chocobo scenes from the series. Very funny. Beverly Blouin was joined by two male singers to perform the opera scene from FFVI. The lyrics were in English and the song was synched up with scenes from the original Super NES FFVI opera scenes. It was humorous and entertaining.
Five of the 19 songs came from FFVIII. Two of the songs came from VII (probably the most popular FF) and another two from XIII (the latest single-​player FF). I was disappointed that there were no songs from IV (II, USA) and only one song from X («To Zanarkand»), my personal favorite FF. Then again, I understand they can only fit so many songs into the show and there are so many great ones to choose from!
The show was capped off with «Terra’s Theme» from FFVI (III, USA) and a special credits roll using the intro sequence with the Magitek walking through the snow. At the end, Nobuo Uematsu joined Arnie Roth on stage and they performed an encore of «One-​Winged Angel» from FFVII. Roth also did this in 2005 for Dear Friends. «One-​Winged Angel» is one of the most popular FF songs and it really pumped the audience up. Distant Worlds turned out to be a magnificent production. I loved every minute of it and thought it was an amazing and memorable performance.