PLAY! A Video Game Symphony
 

Yasunori Mitsuda will attend the world premiere of Play! in Chicago. He will meet up with the fans in the Meet and Greet. It's also confirmed that music from both Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross will be performed at all the concerts! It will be a suite of several tunes from the games.

I guess you who have tickets for this concert couldn't be happier. I think this is the first official appearance of Yasunori Mitsuda in North America.

http://www.play-symphony.com/news.php?full=15

YES YES YES! I cannot wait. This is going to be a ridiculous concert. Marty O'Donnell, Yasunori Mitsuda, Yuzo Kushiro. Wow, I can't wait to hear the Chrono pieces. Funny too, because I just bought the Chrono Cross OST yesterday and have been listening to it.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuckk.

This is getting more and more painful, shit. I went to Chicago last year for Dear Friends, but I don't think I can make it again. I can't believe all the names they got, and I can't believe I'm going to miss this. (I got tickets to the show in my city, but none of these people will be there, for sure)

Don't forget to add Akira Yamaoka to that list too. Sounds like a killer of a show so far and Chicago is only a 5 hour Amtrak ride away....:)

'bout time Chicago started getting some respect. I'm sick of all the big names being only on the coasts.

That said, I hadn't planned to attend this one, and might not be able to :( Will there be a VIP meet n' greet as there was with Dear Friends?

What genius scheduled the Vienna, VA concert on the same date as the first night of Otakon (Friday, August 4)? Don't they realize they're cutting off quite a bit of their fanbase? Sure, we could go to Philadelphia on 7/27, but that's a Thursday night and a lot less convenient to the Balt/Wash area.

I'd like to go to this concert, but it would be a royal pain to get from downtown Baltimore all the way out to Vienna on a Friday night.

Yes, and Yasunori Mitsuda is invited :)

Holy shit, Yuzo fucking Koshiro and Akira Yamaoka. I'm not the biggest Mitsuda fan, but I'd have gone anyway just for the opportunity to go to a VGM performance. Throw those 2 in there, though, and it's a done deal.

40 minutes on the CTA blue line and my ass is THERE.

While it's a good news, that's for sure, I still find it sad that the organizers of this "Western" show are trying to attract people using "Eastern" big names. I know that there are some non-Japanese composers who will also be present, but they don't make as much noise around it and the selection is quite straight-forward.

Yeah, Japanese game music is much more popular than anything done outside of that country, and yes, to ignore this by not including any of it in the show wouldn't have been reasonable. But the part I find sad is that they finally have the occasion of promoting Western game music through a live event, but it seems that it's not exactly their goal. There is definitely more than enough material from the West to put up an entertaining show, but I guess it falls down to pleasing the pro-Jap fans and to be able to rentabilize it, while putting some easily accessible orchestral Western tracks most people won't care about just to say they included some. It's as if there wasn't enough talent in America/Europe. Several people would actually agree with this statement, however I don't.

Maybe I shouldn't see it like this though, by not seperating West and East? It's simply game music afterall. Oh well, I guess it's just me...

Have a good show anyway.

Sweet, I would love to go to something like this. I also have a friend in Chicago, but I just can't see myself flying out there. :(

I booked tickets as soon as they went on sale :D! I am pleased to hear Mitsuda attending and that his Chrono music will be featured. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford VIP tickets, so I won't get to meet the composers attending :(...

I take it you wear formal clothes to these events? I'm seriously considering going. Just expensive, plus I have college in the fall, damn college costs.

You absolutely do not have to wear formal clothes. I have never worn formal clothes to any concert. I don't come wearing dirty looking clothes or anything, hahaha, but you don't need to dress up to these type of events.

Dammit, why aren't any cool gaming events in South Florida?

I'd totally go to this if I lived remotely near Chicago.

If you have some class, you'll wear something formal to this show. Unless you want to be like the smelly Sephiroth cosplayers.

Mario & Zelda music confirmed for PLAY!
 

Look at www.play-symphony.com. Click on "Program". Two beloved video game series from Nintendo are now listed :)

Okay, we don't need a new thread for each PLAY! announcement. I'm merging this in with your last thread to create a PLAY! thread.

Even semi-formal will do. I've been to shows at the Rosemont Theatre before (the Moody Blues), and it's a pretty nice place, but there were people in all sorts of attire. It depends on the event as much as the locale. Black jeans and a collared shirt will do fine. You don't need to go opera-glass formal for the RT, though certain events probably call for it. Just don't show up looking like the cover of Aqualung and you'll be fine.

As soon as this comes to the UK i am so booking some tickets. My Mum is all excited about this so i'll probably go with her. We missed the last game music tour so i don't want to miss this one. It sounds awesome.

your mom loves VGM too? cool!

I wish I could watch... sigh, what a surrealistic dream.

FUUUCKK!!! Will this be on TV or can someone record it? lol.

Be sure to upload the footage!! :P

I really wish I could go see this, and see Mitsuda live. The tour is going to Sweden aswell, but i dont live there anymore :(

Yea be sure to get us some footage or something! :)

Jesus! They're coming to Toronto! I'm pretty sure Mitsuda's not going to venture into the hog town of Toronto ;_;

Oh well, all good =D

Nobuo Uematsu will come to the concert in Stockholm June 14! This is so good news.

http://play-symphony.com/news.php?full=17

Double Post:
New concert date and location: Detroit, July 12. The concert will be performed at the Max Fisher Hall by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and chorus.

Man. Know what? I'm in. Chicago, May 27th, full $125 ticket. I'm excited. I've never even been to Chicago before, I'll get to see the city. ...anybody have a place I can crash at? :)

You should be, because now it's confirmed that Nobuo Uematsu will attend not only the concert in Stockholm, but also the world premiere in Chicago!

Maybe we should arrange GFF meets for some of the cities if enough ppl are going?

I'll be there with the $125 ticket as well. =D

I've been conversing a lot with the producers of PLAY! recently as part of an interview and, though not too much can be confirmed, I can safely say that there are many major surprises in store for all concert attendees. One will be the active role of a legendary composer, and another will be the premier of some new Uematsu works, not including the fanfare. I can't say too much, but it's looking set to be REALLY good.

For me, I'm really hoping to attend if and when it comes to the UK. I'm off to NZ soon, but am not optimistic I'll be around the right time.

They have to hit the west coast... they can't have Dear Friends up and down California and not have PLAY! over here. The Chicago show looks great though, will be really exciting to be attending the premiere.

Oh and people don't expect you to be in a tux, but don't be wearing ripped jeans and a t-shirt either.

VGL was very casual, but if you're going to watch a symphony in an actual concert hall, out of respect for the performers, you try to look presentable. :p

The first official video game orchestra in Sweden - that's bloody amazing for us swedes, since you people overseas often get all the attention and many game releases and such before we get them in Sweden and PAL-versions. Thankfully someone heard our prayers for video game music and sent the PLAY!-symphony squad to correct some of those many times we've been shitfaced here in Sweden. Thank you Arnie Roth and thank you, Nobuo Uematsu!

Video Game Music Forever!

Thomas Boecker is the European pioneer. He's from Germany himself, loves Chris Huelsbeck, produced the Merregnon trilogy, and also inspired the three German Symphonic Game Music Concerts. So thank him!

I agree that Europe, apart from Germany, often gets shunted. There's not been a single event in the UK yet. That said, though, there's not enough events anywhere apart from Japan!

I just noticed it's coming to the Wolf Trap Center in VA. That's somewhat close to me. I haven't been to a video game concert since the very first Dear Friends one back in 2004.

I am definitely considering going to this. Anyone else in the area down?

This just keeps getting better and better. Now it's confirmed that Koji Kondo will attend the Chicago concert!

http://www.play-symphony.com/news.php?full=23

Nice! But for me, it just keeps getting worse and worse. My opinion that they are overlooking Western game music (and its composers) gets stronger with every news that comes up about that show, sadly. It's fascinating how some people are listening to and supporting exclusively Japanese VGM, as if anything else isn't worth any attention or very few. I admit that there is a lot more happening in Japan and that as a whole, the music is probably better, but an American show not encouraging more the composers from its country is something bad in my opinion and it won't help things get better. I guess I'm somewhat of an eccentric for thinking this way unlike everybody who are excited about that event, but I know that to be succesful, it must aim at the mainstream. It's still great that all those composers are coming, but a more balanced line-up would have made me happier. In a future show, I guess...

Shit, I was going to make my order for the VIP tickets today and they're sold out of them! >=(

Yes, but what about this show:
http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=home

VGL has indeed more focus on Western game music, but this leads me to another thing I don't like about those shows -> the game series that are featured are always the same (taken mostly from the G.A.N.G. composers & friends) and it's always orchestral music. That's normal since it's performed by an orchestra, but when an organizer will understand most of the popular VGM (among the fans) isn't orchestral and will decide to put up a show with synthesizers and rock instruments (like the Zuntata shows), then that will be something I'd definitely be interested in. I guess I'm hard to please, but I still recognize their current efforts as it will open the way to different events in the future.

The news keep coming: Music from Blue Dragon will be performed exclusively at the concert in Chicago. The music is composed by Nobuo Uematsu.

It isn't surprising that the VIP tickets now are sold out. It's fantastic that so many great composers will be gathered at one place. It's strange that something like this haven't already happened in Japan.

I'm wondering what the Japanese fans think about this. Maybe they will get a great concert in Tokyo sooner or later...

I think you're basing a little too much on what's been currently announced. There'll be around 20 titles in total and only 15 or so have been announced. I believe what you should do is just wait, as I'm told that the involvement of several other Western composers and titles is a certainty. That's mostly because concert will have a unique finale, which will include the appearance of works from Western composers and the people themselves. Sweden, for example, has The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. I don't think you'll be disappointed by the Western vs. Eastern distribution in the long run.

Yes, you're probably right that there will be more Western music featured, but the current promotion (which is the main one) is about the Japanese side, so I guess that what hasn't been announced yet will serve as some kind of filler. I'm pretty sure I'll still be deceived in the end, but this is because I'm expecting too much I guess.

It's cool that the "Chronicles of Riddick" music will be featured in Sweden, and I have nothing against that soundtrack, but I don't think it ever became popular among the VGM fans. Like, I'm sure people who'll go to the show are really excited about that! Anyway...

I'm happy for all the pro-Jap VGM fans though, this is finally something great!

For Chronicles of Riddick, I think it'll be popular given the composer, Gustaf Grefberg, is actually Swedish and something of a legend there. The finales will largely represent the state/country they're being performed in.

I'm pretty confident that what will be chosen will be good. The unique items at the Chicago premier shows how much thought the producers have put in to each concert. It's worth noting that pretty much all the Merregnon contributors will be involved in PLAY!

I'm surprised that Michael Giacchino's Medal of Honor works haven't been confirmed yet, but maybe this will form part of a finale yet.

Wow, I didn't realize there was a concert scheduled for Philly at the end of July. Hooray! Hopefully I'll be able to make it to that one; this sounds like it would be an amazing event.

No love for Toronto? What's up with that!?

The site lists a Sept. 30 concert at the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto. Or are you talking about the composers actually being there?

Yeah.

I could listen to game music on my computer... I'd rather have Nobuo conduct - anything. I don't care - I just want him there!

They just announced that Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (Sega composer) is going to be at the Chicago premiere as well.

No announcements doesn't mean nobody prominent will attend. September 30 is quite some time away and the team will probably make some announcements closer to the date.

Nobuo is COMING. Koji Kondo is COMING. This is amazing. I am no longer making a visit to a Chicago, or a trip. This is a *pilgrimage*.

Hehe :)

Chris Hülsbeck is going to attend the Stockholm concert, so it will be something like that for me, too.

I would be up for a GFF meet of sorts. Also, I am planning on bringing my Nintendo DS...I attended one of the last Dear Friends concerts without it, and heard afterwards that there was tons of picochatting going on which I'd have loved to be in on. So anyone who's got one, bring it.

As soon as I heard they were having a concert in Stockholm I went almost nuts witn joy. And bought a ticket for almost immedietley after they were released. As a VGM Maniac I didnt want to miss it. Probably the only time Sweden will have such luck. >_>

And when I heard Uematsu and Chris Hülsbeck are attending the concert, it sounds too good to be missed.

Also, does anyone who lives in Chicago want to host a GFF crash party the night before/of? :)

I can't wait to go to this!

Jeremy Soule's Oblivion has been added to the bill -
http://www.music4games.net/News_Display.aspx?id=293

This thing just keeps getting bigger. I haven't been keeping score, but it seems like they have 50 tracks lined up and like a dozen composers attending.

Wow. I wonder what date I should order tickets by if I want to be sure I get them for the July 27th Philly show?

We conducted an email interview with the PLAY! concert producer here:
http://www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=57

what is the dress code per-se? im attending this weekend though only the cheapest seat coz i got not much dough :(

here's the latest announcement which will be of interest to PLAY! attendees:

Hitoshi Sakimoto and Yoko Shimomura to attend PLAY! Detroit concert
http://www.music4games.net/News_Display.aspx?id=298

I believe dress code is smart casual.

Sakimoto presents music from Vagrant Story, a.k.a. the theme music of Detroit.

Ah FUCK! They'd better come through Seattle eventually.

Interesting, more and more popular composers are attending each PLAY! concert; at this rate, I certainly wouldn't be too surprised having some other composers like Hamauzu or Sakuraba come in.

It's been announced that Yoko Shimomura and Hitoshi Sakimoto will both be attending the concert in Detroit on July 12th.

News here:
http://play-symphony.com/news.php

So, who's going to the Toronto show? Tickets for the general public went on sale today, and (barring a second fuck-up with Ticketmaster) I just snagged mine.

That's no small commitment for me, considering I'm going to have to pay so much extra to fly up there from Newfoundland and find a hotel or hostel for the weekend. THAT'S how much hope I have for this show, even without any special guests announced yet. It's so far in the future that I guess they haven't arranged anything yet, so I suppose the only thing to do is to check the site from time to time and hope the ONE Canadian show gets some love eventually.

Hmm I wonder if I'll be able to find replacement for that weekend of sept. 30... Because it's a 6-hours trip from my house, I better find a hotel there too.

just a quick information guys... recently I read news that a popchestra in my country, called Twilite Orchestra has planned to perform Final Fantasy concert in my country in June. The information is still vague, they do recruit pianist who could play Tatakau Monotachi though. I will keep you informed, and if they happen to release a CD after the concert, I would buy it and share it to community of course.

This is really a surprise, considering not too many people in my country know the name of "final fantasy".

It was awesome, enough said!, i attended the chicago one and i must say that although there were a few things i wish would have been implemented more (ex.Final Fantasy Main Theme instead of One Winged Angel twice) it was unbelievable. Koji Kondo did a piano solo for the Wii mario game that was absolutely amazing, the sonic arrangements made my mouth drop! and MGS!!! omg!, Akira Yamaoka, chrono cross theme arranged/orchestrated...sigh!! I am so angry they didnt have cd's LOL, nothing like enjoying a night of this and not being able to take anything home to listen to lol!!! I could really go on and on about it, but its too much. I certainly do hope you guys and gals enjoy it as i have:D.

Maybe by the time they get around to the Canadian concert in September, they'll have some CDs to sell. That'd make it worth the wait, at least. ;)

Did they play any Silent Hill music at the Chicago concert, Musashinden? I'm curious what tracks they would have chosen (except the obvious main theme, of course).

Nice to hear that One Winged Angel made it, though. I put the More Friends version on one of the mix CDs I play while driving, and because of that, I've gradually gotten far, far more fond of OWA than I used to be. It's oddly invigorating to be driving in heavy traffic with the orchestra/Black Mages live version blaring.

I was also at the Chicago concert, and Akira Yamaoka himself played on the guitars and did an awesome rendition of Theme of Laura, with backing instruments by the orchestra; very good stuff.

Unfortunately, my hotel was far away, so I couldn't stay to hear the second showing of One-Winged Angel (it was eleven by then), but the first time around was already great. Liberi Fatali was practically perfect, though.

Got my ticket for the Toronto show! Yes! Btw, how long is the conert gonna be? I'm wondering if i can get a bus out of TO by midnight or if i should just stay with friends that night . . .

Amanda, Yamaoka played guitar behind the orchestra (a la Special End Title from the Biohazard Orchestral Album) which was awesome indeed:D! I cant remember exactly how long it was but i KNOW it was LOONG lol, OVER 2 hours at least;). The concert started at 8 and ended about 11pm:D. I mean they way they did MGS Main Theme, Sonic, even Koji Kondos' new Mario Wii Theme he did solo on piano was incredible. There so much to it, you all should check it out if possible. I cant wait to get a cd:).

:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o

That sounds amazing. I wish I could've been there. :-/

I'm hoping to see the July 27th one in Philly.

Koji Kondo's piano solo wasn't from Super Mario Galaxy, that was the main level theme from the new DS Mario game. Arnie Roth confirmed it too, saying it was from "the new Super Mario Bros game". I can see why people would have confused it, but if you play it on the DS it's the exact song. Koji Kondo isn't credited as the composer for the new DS game (only the "Sound Director"), but it'd be cool if that song ended up in some form in Super Mario Galaxy anyway.

The concert in general was outstanding. Everyone was so excited and the show had lots of special treats with random performances and solos between the orchestra's songs. Angela Aki has the voice of a goddess (as well as being blindingly hot).

I gave Jeremy Soule an origami box as thanks for contributing to Overclocked ReMix an arrangement of FF6's Terra's Theme.

I'm attending the Detroit concert, also :)! I want to get V.I.P. tickets and give Ms. Shimomura a copy of my KH arrangements, heh. I just hope that by the time I round up my friends to order tickets, that the V.I.P. seats won't all be taken.

As for the Chicago concert, WOW! I loved every bit of it! I especially loved the Battlefield suite, and the Chrono Series Suite. The percussionist they featured was awesome, and his playing really fit Time's Scar. The Elder Scrolls suites were also great. I was rather impressed with the American game music contributions, and the Japanese were more nostalgic and just as entertaining. Yamaoka's performance was awesome, as well! The orchestral rock was a perfect way to give the concert some variety in styles. I can't wait for Detroit :D!

I'm going, but I'm confused. Tickets went on sale only a few days ago? I got mine a good 2 months ago. Am I missing something?

I bet she will be definitely overjoyed knowing that a fan has arranged her KH for piano. Good luck.;)



be prepared to tackle the swarm of fans that getting in your way

I've been checking the site for the last month, and I've only seen the Hummingbird Centre selling tickets for people who are members of their "Circle of Friends", even if you went through Ticketmaster. Seems like the "Circle of Friends" members get first crack at the tickets, and they only went on sale to the general public a few days ago. Unless all the "YOU MUST BE A MEMBER OF THE CIRCLE OF FRIENDS TO BUY TICKETS AT THIS TIME; TICKETS FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC GO ON SALE MAY 27th" things I kept running into were lying to me.

I don't know what the chances are for many composers to bother coming to the Toronto show. But I can hope. Hearing Yamaoka playing Silent Hill music live would be worth my entire trip right there. :)

Well, I just ordered tickets for the July 27th show in Philly. Can't wait! :D

Weird. I definately got my tickets from Ticketmaster on February 15th, 2006. ORCH1 Row BB Seats 42 and 43. I doubt there will be special guests for Toronto, at least not of the same calibre as those in other cities. If they were playing some kind of Prince of Persia music, maybe they could have asked Stuart Chatwood to come, he's Canadian. :)

That might explain why the Ticketmaster link for that show on the PLAY! site led to a "This show does not exist" message until a few days ago. Maybe they had them on sale super-early for some reason, then yanked them when they decided to do exclusive-only ticket sales for the last few weeks, then put them back up again a few days ago. Seems like as good a theory as any.

Hey, I'm only a few rows up from you! ORCH3, row FF. :)

nuuuu!!!should be on the west coast!!! RAWR!!!

Just got this e-mail:

Videos of Akira Yamaoka's performance and One-Winged Angel. Those just justified my ticket right there. If you're not sure whether you want to go to the show (and, like me, were annoyed by the lack of a decent trailer on the site), check 'em out.

Why can't it be September NOW?

Is anyone here attending the Stockholm concert on the 14th? I'll be there and can't wait to meet Huelsbeck and Uematsu. It'd be pretty cool if some other GFF members were attending.

We posted a brief report on the Chicago concert here:
http://www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=95

We'll also have a report on the VGL Philly concert shortly!

I went to the concert in Stockholm, Sweden yesterday!
It was one of the best things I've ever seen...Of course, I havent been to any other game concert since this one was like, the first one in Sweden.
Anyway, it was so wonderful, I almost cried...and the really great band that played old NES-tunes in the waiting lounge was great as well. Another cool thing is that I know like 95% of the people that was in the choir!

Anyone else who went to the Sweden concert yesterday?? Which song was best performed? Personally I liked the Battlefield 1942/2 theme, One Winged Angel, Shenmue main theme and Morrowind the best!

EDIT: Mr.Maul, you met Uematsu??? How did you manage to do that?:P

I was also at the Stockholm concert!

To meet the various composers, I think you had to get lucky and get a meet-and-greet pass while entering. A friend of my friend got one, and my friend made him bring some stuff to the meet-and-greet, and Uematsu signed the stuff happily.

And wow, this was one of the best evenings of my life probably. It was actually beyond my expectations. My only "real" complaint is that the choir was a bit to small. It felt pretty tiny compared to the rest of the orchestra.
And also, Theme of Laura didn't really work without Yamaoka. That video on youtube is amazing, and I think the Silent Hill music really needs that rock-ish attitude. At the Stockholm concert, the electric guitar was played by an Orchestra member I think, and it felt really stale. The clean sound he used was also really bad.
Kind of a shame since it was one of my most anticipated songs of the night, oh well.

My favourite was probably Battlefield theme or the Legend of Zelda medley. I've always been fond of the Battlefield, but wow... It sounded really amazing/powerful with this arrangment. The percussionist is also absolutely awesome!
The Zelda medley is pretty predictable I guess, but it's just such a nostalgia trip... Nearly cried on that one.

Shen Mue theme was also very beautiful.

Both Liberi Fatali and One-winged angel sounded great... Again, it's just the "usual" arrangments, but man... When you hear them played live, they really pack a punch!

I had such an awesome time, and I highly recommend anyone to get tickets to the upcoming shows!

Does anyone know if there is an auido recording of the whole concert somewhere

I was there alright!

Most memorable ones had to be Liberi Fatali and the Chrono Suite. Both brought gallons of tears into my eyes.

All of us Finnish people who came to the concert also had a special meet with Uematsu, as we ran into him in the street late after the concert. We chatted a bit, took group pictures with him, he signed all our soundtrack booklets and gave us pretty nifty promotion items of his freelance firm Smile Please.

It was already 2 at night at that time and even after that we went and greeted some Swedish game music fans from spelmusik.net, who got our tickets for us at the last minute and were great contributors to our journey altogether. :)

I too would be interested in an audio recording of some sort.

As I attended the press conference, I received a VIP 'meet and greet' special pass for after the concert. I didn't get the chance to meet Huelsbeck, unfortunately, but got pictures of all the others plus one with me and Uematsu together.

Glad someone agrees with me here. I'm pretty sure it was the bassoonist. It was a dull performance, in my opinion, which is a pity given the orchestral parts were so good. More Yamaoka plz!!

You didn't happen to meet someone hanging around with the Spelmusik dudes but from England and completely unable to speak Swedish, did you? If so, that was likely me.

Gonna just quote my incoherent ramblings about the Stockholm concert. I'm intending to make a full review shortly:

I wouldn't know about that, since we spoke English all the time, and I assumed everyone was Swedish enough. IIRC there were five others besides us 8 Finns at first, but eventually everyone except Johan went to the central train station so we decided to kidnap him.

If you remember hanging out at that time of night in a huge crowd consisting mostly of really wacky people, then that was us.

What a small world... god.

EDIT: Anyway, this is what we looked like, if it rings any bells.

The one to the right of Mr. Uematsu rings a bell, but nah... I don't recognise the others. ;) What an awesome picture, though! If I were you, I would have attempted to do a full-on kidnap, but still, an excellent partial effort!

Seems a wonderful concert, looking from your review ;_;
anyway, I'm bit curious why they didnt put Destati in this concert. I think it's one of the most powerful composition of Shimomura's.

Wow I'm envy too you all who went there. Meet and greet with uematsu? ><

Sounds like it was a wonderful concert. This just makes the wait for the July 27th Philly concert even harder!

It's definitely worth the wait, dude! I think of the concert just like i did when I was small after christmas;"too day it's three days since the concert..."
Anyway, I would love to see it again, wouldn't hesitate to see it again if it comes to a country nearby or whynot again to Stockholm? I think Arnie Roth and his people wouldn't hesitate, if you saw the ovasions and applauses they got. Haha, Roth had to run back to the scene 3 times after their last performance and play "One-Winged Angel" again plus the song from Blue Dragon...He must have noticed the love the swedish public gave him and the concert.

He did the same thing in Chicago, so it's not so "special". ;p

Though, I heard they played OWA twice in a row in Chic. That's not very far from tactless. So I guess the Swedish audience had it better.

Hey this is a question for anyone who's been to the first concert already. If you remember, about how long was the concert from start to finish? My brother and I are planning on going to the phildelphia concert but are just planning on transportation back to new york, and if its even possible when the concert's over. It starts at 8:30, not sure if all of em are so just throwin that in =)..thanks

Ours started at 8:00 and ended at 10:50ish.

It was a fantastic day! The Chrono Suite was as good as expected, and to meet you, Mr. Maul and Kishin, and so many other game music enthusiasts was a treat. Meeting Nobuo Uematsu wasn't bad either :)

Music from Shadow of the Colossus will be performed in Detroit! I think this is a very good choice. Kow Otani's masterpiece of soundtrack really deserves this.

Awesome! I hope they play it at the Philly concert as well.

OMG, lucky bastards who are going to that concert! :p

I'd kill to hear stuff from the Shadow of the Colossus. Hope someone records it!

Yes, I sure hope so, too. Otherwise, I'll just have to attend the concert again, even though it isn't exactly close to where I live.

It'll be interesting to see what they'll play from the game, as well as how they'll arrange the music from the game.

...and we can't forget Sakimoto's arrangements for the concert; Vagrant Story would be a blast.

Wow! I've just got a torrent with a full recording from the Stockholm show.

http://tracker.magicite.net/

I love you Lolman! <3

Gonna check it out now! Thanks

Could you please upload the torrent here? Somehow I'm just not able to register at the site's tracker system.

is anyone kind enough to upload them to sendspace? =(
I could only download around 1-3 kb/s by torrent. At that rate it will take forever to finish the download.

I'm uploading it right now.

I'm uploading it now, and It will be done within the hour. I changed the artist ID3 tag to "PLAY! A Video Game Symphony", it was originally labled as the orchestra that performed it (I forget what it was). I hope you don't mind!

EDIT: I see Drakken is also uploading, but I won't cancel it just incase.

EDIT: Here you go!

Might as well post mine as well; I couldn't stay up late enough last night to post them when they finished. :p

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.ph...36B46147C7C44E
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vxc0ln

Thank you very much. Both of you! :)
Uugh... "Theme of Laura" really sucks in comparison to Yamaoka's performance at the Chicago concert but the rest sounds great. :D

Up through Sonic Medley so far. This is great! It's awesome to hear those old StH themes orchestrated creatively, I've definately not heard the themes in this much awesomeness before!

Thanks to folks for recording this and uploading~

Here's a video of the full Metal gear solid theme from Stockhoml that someone on youtube uploaded (thanks!). Great quality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GLDYrIZHxA

If you check the uploaders other videos, there are a few clips (not full unfortunately) from other performances as well (including the awesome awesome awesome Battlefield 1942 theme)

I'm eagerly anticipating this concert!

I live 15 minutes from the Mann Music Center in Philly - so there's absolutely no excuse for me not to attend!

okay; so did Arnie Roth ACTUALLY orchestrate some of the tracks on this concert?

I mean, I know the FF music was Hamaguchi's orchestrations, and Passion (KH2) was the Kaoru Wada version, but were the rest not done by the original composers?? Does anyone know who truly arranged these medleys, and such for orchestra??

... that is all :D

I know there were some that Arnie Roth put together, but I don't remember which ones right now.
I think the 'Swing de Chocobo' thing was done by him for example.

just listening through, i'm positive that Koji Kondo did the Zelda medley, OR arnie just totally plagarized an older string orchestra medley that is in the same form, same pieces, same transitions & most likely same keys. (except for that the string one never had the opening to ocarina of time)

With swing de chocobo, how much could he have REALLY had to do? since it was pretty much the same as the FFX version? heh

Kingdom Hearts is just a medley of a few of the orchestral pieces previously orchestrated by Kaoru Wada, and they sorta smushed them together :P

The Chrono Trigger tracks (main theme, frog's theme/ ending theme) are nearly just adaptations from the CT'99 (arranged/orchestrated by Tsuyoshi Sekito)

I'm sure Sakimoto will orchestrate his own piece (since he does such a good job of that).

I'm not sure i can account accurately for the rest

Well Roth basically took the Brass De Chocobo from FFX and expanded it. The Opera from FF6 in the FF concerts were from an older arrangement as well, and they updated and fixed it. They are still considered arrangers of the music even if the base of the arrangement already existed, if they added anything or changed and extended anything, it can still be considered their arrangement. Not to mention they needed to orchestrate Brass De Chocobo for a full symphony, not just a brass band like in FFX.

As long as they credit the original arrangers as well, I think its fine.

I think it's fine as well.
Same goes for the Zelda arrangement. I'm sure the idea came from the String symphony version yes, but you still have to decide what instruments play what parts etc.
It's not just deciding what is going to be played, it's how it's going to be played as well.

With that said, yes, I would've liked the Zelda medley to be more original. It was still one of my favourite pieces of the night though.

Not totally related to this concert:

1) there was an OLD version of the "maria and draco" opera, totally uematsu (from Grand Finale)

2) there was a NEW version by shiro hamaguchi (from More Friends)

this is just to clarify; is that opera anywhere in the Play! concert series program? (seeing as it is ever evolving)

I'm going to sound like a complete and total whore here, but would someone be able to re-upload the recording to a file sending service? I really want to go to this, but the one showing that's anywhere near me I already have a commitment.

Regarding arrangements:

Yasunori Mitsuda arranged the Chrono Trigger & Chrono Cross Suite
Jonne Valtonen (valtone.com) did the arrangements for Zelda and Mario
Swing de Chocobo is indeed arranged by Arnie Roth

Double Post:
And big news for Toronto show goers: Nobuo Uematsu will attend the concert!

Mo0, I'm uploading it right now, but I'm on my way out and I won't be back for about 4 hours. I'll post the link then.

EDIT: Nevermind, it finished sooner than I thought.

Throw in Yamaoka and this will be less a trip than a pilgrimage.

Most of the Stockholm show recording sounded pretty good. From what I've listen to so far, the only really bad piece was Theme of Laura. Can't wait to see the Toronto show!

For those of you that wanted to compare Stockholm's "Theme of Laura" to Chicago's excellent one, there's a video on YouTube of Akira Yamaoka in his now-legendary snakeskin suit.

"PLAY: Theme of Laura (with Akira Yamaoka)"*

It was definitely a VERY unique experience hearing a symphony playing along with drums and a very very loud electric guitar.


*NOTE: Since I don't have enough posts to post URLs yet, just type that above string into YouTube's search and it should be the only video you find.

Already linked.

Well the Detroit concert has ended, I'm talking to Cow from KHU website and hes gonna put up his report on the concert on Friday, along with photos. His video interview of Shimomura needs to be send to PR people, but after that, we will see it! This is a rare opputunity that a fan site gets to talk to Yoko for the first time!

Oh and if anyone who has gone and has recorded the Shadow of Colossus track, please post here, as we would all love to hear it.

Question for those who have attended the concerts that have passed already...about how long is the concert? My brother and I are planning on taking the Amtrak to philadelphia from new york and the concert starts at 8:30..just wondering about what time we'd get out so we can plan a schedule or something..thanks

Very nice rip of the concert, though there are some annoying noises like sound of cough in the Liberi Fatali. @_@
but overall, the quality is beyond I thought. very good.

So the Zelda suite is a rip-off of Ryuichi Katsumata's string orchestra arrangement!? That's very disappointing. Because the Super Mario Bros. suite sounded very similar to the Orchestral Game Concert arrangement with the Super Mario World "Title" theme and a few Super Mario 64 pieces thrown in. Also, the "Super Mario 64 Main Theme" arrangement didn't sound so hot... and his attempt at "Stage Boss" was terrible - at least from the low quality recording I heard.

What really would've kicked ass is if Kondo performed "Ultimate Bowser" or "Inside Ganon's Castle" at the Chicago show - they both would've been nice still on the piano or an electric piano on the organ setting. But then, I'm sure it was intended to be a plug for NSMB.

Hi, is it true that they only perform live and no soundtracks will be released?

Kairi Li,

I was Cow's camera-man in the interview with Shimomura ;). I also handed her a cd with a few of my piano works on it. She was quite flattered and asked me a few questions about it. I was surprised to see how much interest she had in my project. I'm just waiting a reply from Ms. Shimomura to see if she liked the music :D. I will be writing a complete and fully detailed review for Squaresound and Square Enix Music.com.

It's too bad that the website that offered the whole KHII soundtrack for download after its release got a chance to talk to its composer. I doubt Mrs Shimomura knew that while she was interviewed.

All the music is took down so it doesn't matter anyway. They took all of them down before they contact the PR people of the concert.

And many fansites offer mp3s anyway, if not the whole OST, then weekly mp3s. There really is not stopping it, at least KHU took them down before approaching the idea of an interview.

Can't wait to read your report Josh!

Sweet Josh. I wonder if Square Enix will release album of your arrangement months later. Did you talk to Shimomura in english?

Eriol,

Actually, I did speak to her in english. Of course, Shimomura spoke only Japanese (except for some english formalities like "Thank you very much" and "Pleased to meet you"). However, there was a translator, so everything was alright :).

I'm so excited for you Josh, I can't say it enough. Be sure to keep us posted at SS and SEMO!

*still waiting for Cow's interview on KHU*

I spoke to Cow and the first part of the concert report should be up tomrrow.

And has anyone recorded the Detroit concert? I like to hear how the performance for Shadow of Colossus was like.

I went to the concert in Stockholm. Drove 20 hours in 2 days just to see it. Got Nobuo Uematsus autograph as well =D

Loved the concert utterly btw

I'm so psyched for the Philly concert tomorrow night. Anyone else from GFF going?

Oh, and...

PLAY! to feature music from famous Castlevania-series

That's awesome to hear.

What's not awesome to hear is that the Philly concert will feature music from "Prey." I have no idea how Prey's music is (or what it's like), but I can't help but feel like we're getting gypped when other cities get stuff like Shadow of the Colossus and Castlevania. Oh well.

Just got in from the Philly concert a little bit ago. I'm gonna be lazy and copy and paste my post from another forum, since it's so late, and I don't feel like writing more.

Yeah, I was bummed about Prey being Philly's exclusive music. I hadn't known it was Soule, though. It was ok.

I figured they would do an encore, I just wasn't sure what it would be. The Blue Dragon theme was a neat little piece.

That's my feeling too. It was really neat, but I think, "this should have been better" and "that should have been like this."

They should show more game video on the big screens, and less playing. Or, they could continue to show playing on the left and right screens and have game video on the middle screen.

They show almost every game, but NOT CHRONO?! It was a huge disappointment to hear Frog's Theme being played and not see him on the screen. No Final Fantasy footage either. Maybe it has something to do with Squaresoft licensing?

Everything needed to be louder.

The Zelda medley was my favorite, though like almost every other medley, I wish it was longer and contained more songs. It was great to hear the Chrono Trigger theme. Reminscence ~Thoughts Not Extinguished~ (pretty sure it's that one, it was a nice piano song) was a very nice surprise as the Chrono opener; I didn't expect them to play that one. The Shenmue music was pretty; my friend liked that the best besides Zelda.

I was disappointed by Halo as well. First off, the men were singing with vibrato at the beginning. That should have just been sung straight; there's no vibrato there. That was kind of minor, though. The more major thing was that the song simply wasn't as powerful as it should have been. As I said before, everything should have been louder.

I was disappointed by the Chrono medley as well. It was my most anticipated part, and I felt that it was too short and frankly, not as powerful/emotional as it should have been. The transition to the Celtic part in Time's Scar was almost a trainwreck as far as the instruments being together. I expected to hear all of To Far Away Times, and we only got to hear the very end.

So, they only play a few songs from Chrono, Halo, and such, and then they play like 10 minutes of World of Warcraft music. What's up with that? :-/

Still a really neat experience overall. It was such an odd atmosphere, seeing all these kids, teens, and young adults everywhere; certainly not your normal symphony crowd. It was kind of neat in a way though, as was everyone laughing/cheering at the old-school Mario and Zelda clips.

Though I have my complaints, it's great that game music has come far enough to have two dedicated concert tours (this and Video Games Live). I thought it was cool in a way to be having a "world premiere" of a video game score being played by an orchestra. Here's hoping this new awareness and acceptance of vgm continues to grow and leads to many more events like this.

YES. Keep the good news coming, PLAY!. Justify my plane ticket!

I wonder what Castlevania songs will make the cut. It'd be interesting to see something like "The Tragic Prince" make it into an orchestra arrangement. Though considering the Kingdom Hearts suite apparently leaves out songs like "Destati", I guess it's most likely to just be a main theme or two. :/

Yeah, my friend (a big KH fan) was very disappointed with the KH suite. They played the two Japanese pop themes (as he calls them) - Simple and Clean and Passion - and perhaps part of one other songs I didnt' recognize.

It'll interesting seeing what Castlevania songs they choose to play.

I had a Law exam, so I couldn't make it to Philly concert. Everytime I drive by the Mann, I'm gonna be reminded of this missed opportunity... T_T

So, the Toronto show is coming up, anyone in the area buy tickets yet, or are planning?

My friends and I want to go but the tickets are at $55-$125. And to people who has already seen previews shows, what is the best area for the price?

Hi guys,

Eminence is not really at friendly terms with PLAY! however I can enlighten some stuff with you, maybe it may serve to answer some of your questions.

We have the same problems with this. Many game companies, especially the biggest do not license video nor images to video game concerts as they themselves could probably hold concerts and make a disgusting amount of profit from it. However, if we were in PLAY!'s shoes, our goal is the concert. You pay money to listen to a concert, not watching FMAs nor clips from games. Eminence believes that in concert situations, these video's support the concert and is by no way, the main attraction at all. The main focus should be placed on the musicians...

At the same time, PLAY! hires out orchestras who are very much likely to be NOT FAMILIAR with games nor are they INTERESTED in games. In fact, I know for a fact from several top game music composers who were actually invited to PLAY! found the musicians and even some of the organisers rude and disrespectful, perhaps even been thought as a second class musician. We do not respect that kind of attitude, although you may have not noticed it, these musician that just performs for you just out of being paid, makes us sick.

On the other hand, we've had people complaining that the visuals and performance are not synchronised in Eminence's concerts. I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) but same goes with PLAY! A real live symphonic concert do NOT synchronise music with what goes on screen. To perform from the depth of one's soul... you do not just synch. However, on the other hand, one can say Video Games Live does it! We consider VGL a new form of entertainment, not necessary a pure symphonic concert. If you have seen the video of the musicians, they are all wearing half headphones. These are called "Clicktracks" used in movie soundtrack recordings, so the musicians will be strictly in time. Actually, they don't even need a conductor when they have a clicktrack but hey, it's great to see him there ^^ That's why they are completely synched. Synchronisation is not a bad thing at all, it's just VGL is a completely different type of entertainment to that of PLAY! and Eminence. Actually, people enjoy it so it's good isn't it? Just don't expect it from pure Symphonic Game Concert.

Correct. Square Enix never license their FMAs unless it's their own official concert. What PLAY! did, even on their official website with Rinoa on a screen is completely illegal and a fraud. What's more, I'm not sure if they used Final Fantasy in their booklet... but from the information we got from Square Enix, that is also unlicensed.

Yes, but this is a symphonic concert, not a rock concert. Perhaps, to make it become a complete recreation of what you saw on your screen at home, you need to see it at home. This is a concert setting and if you want to respect the composer's will of a live performance, shouldn't be amped (unless there are balance issues).

Please don't blame Mitsuda-san. That was not his arrangement, all done by PLAY! who probably don't know the piece as much as you guys, neither does he care. He/she was probably just paid and was told to "hey you, orchestrate this was this, this and that theme."

Orchestral arrangements and transcription takes time and money. Blizzard is great in the sense that they will give you all the needed sheet music to play. Straight from the box. However, what PLAY! failed to do was to balance the programme length. Of course, we at Eminence fails to see all the opinions of others and do not play enough of some titles etc, on the other hand, PLAY! is a deliberate action to keep costs down in terms of arrangements and transcriptions. This is disappointing to see because many of the freelance composers in Japan are very willing to provide as much material to support a very good arrangement environment...

So in all, they can do this and succeed because they have no competition. Video Games Live, imho, is a completely different stance to that of PLAY!. VGL is a show, a great entertainment. PLAY! is a symphonic concert, just like what we do at Eminence, however, the main difference is PLAY! is doing this for financial gain, at Eminence, everytime we hold a show to crowds of over two thousand, we still make a huge loss because we do not charge so much to our audience who are mainly College students and ticket revenue only covers a fraction of the cost in our expenses as we put a lot of rehearsals in, think a lot about the programming of the music and we make sure that great transcriptions and arrangements are made months in advance. Why do it? Just to achieve our goal of that one extra person to be able to hear this music by a passionate symphony orchestra, nothing more. Also, we're the only professional orchestra in the world that specialise in Symphonic games and anime music.

Anyhow, if you want to know the insides of a symphonic game concert, video game music (Japan only... dunno much about the west besides Blizzard) ask and I'll try and answer it best way I can. I believe that the truth must be known! :)

I've got my ticket, and I'll be in Toronto for a few days before and after the show. Gonna visit friends and do some wandering around.

For the people who have been to the previous PLAY! concerts; do there tend to be pre-show gatherings and media events and things? I remember seeing footage of either PLAY! or VGL having an autograph signing session at a music store the day before the concert, which included some fan musicians showing up and playing game music for people waiting in line. If it WAS PLAY! that did that, do they tend to do it for all the concerts?

Amanda, I read something about that before... did you find any news?

Anywho, WOOT! Can't wait.

PS. Do they sell CDs there?

edit: How much do the pamphlets cost?

Alright . . . so who's coming to the TO concert this Sat?

Double Post:
I'm gonna be somewhere in the orchestra section . . . B 26. Paid a lot of money for this ticket . . .

I'm RORC WW32/33 (depending where my friend sits)

SEE YOU THERE! =D

I'll be there with my fiancee, ORC section...if anyone bought their tickets early, you have to upgrade to VIP if you want to be part of the meet & greet at the end of the show, FYI.

Play! Symphony Troubles...
 

This is some funny (or equally odd) news but I heard Thomas Boecker (Executive producer of Play!) has quit.

I've never had any strong ties nor interest in Play! in the past, but I thought you guys would be interested in knowing. Not entirely sure why though- anyone have any lead on it?

Hmm... makes me wonder if it'll cause any disruption in their management and events =/

After what -=SeRaPH=- told about Play! here I'm not surprised Thomas Böcker is leaving them as he seemed only superficially involved. He better focus just on his neat yearly Leipzig series of vgm concerts during the GC there.

I'm in Toronto, and I'll be there tomorrow in ORCH 3. I'm planning on being at the Hummingbird Centre around 6:45 or 7:00 and hanging around outside for a while before the show. I'll be easy to spot, since I have dark purple hair at the moment.

I got an email a few days ago from the Hummingbird Centre advertising a pre-concert get-together, but it's just a panel discussion about game music with a few people from the film composer's of Canada group or something. Other than that, there's just the meet-and-greet after the show that you have to pay $40+ extra for ahead of time. I'm hoping to show up early at the Hummingbird Centre and find some people jamming outside or something, but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh, and I doubt there's CDs. No PLAY! ones, anyway. None of the other shows have had any. Pamplets and shirts maybe, but unless this is the first show they're selling CDs and they've kept REALLY quiet about it, there's unlikely to be any.

Still in Ottawa for now . . . Bussing it early tomorrow morning. I'll prob run into Amanda but hopefully I'll run into other ppl too. See ya there

The (free) pre-show panel - presented by the Guild of Canadian Film Composers GCFC - actually sounds pretty interesting...wish I could be there to check it out. One of the panelists is Ubisoft Montreal audio director Simon Pressey. For those not familiar with his work, he's the music supervisor for the PRINCE OF PERSIA series and upcoming ASSASSIN'S CREED.

I'm going to be at this panel, definitely interested to hear what Mr. Pressey has to say.

Just after 5pm: Off we go! :)

Fuck, that was pretty gooodd... And that Shenmue guy singing - HEELARIOUS.
Btw, did anyone see Nobuo? I dont even think he came. >_>

Btw, I'm not sure if this was you, Amanda. But were you with 3 other people? And you spoke French.... <_______<

Just got back from the meet and greet afterwards. You didn't see Uematsu? Arnie pointed him out a few times in the audience, and he was mobbed at the end of the show. I got to meet him and get a picture with him, Mitsuyoshi was great, I talked to him after the show and told him I loved Burning Rangers and he started singing it, haha. Got a picture with him and Arnie Roth as well...Mitsuyoshi's expression is priceless.

Uetmasu did show up . . . The spotlight was never able to show him while he was moving around or sitting down. And yeah he was mobbed at the end. Tried my best but I couldn't get a picture . . .

Oh yeah, I almost got a Sonic plushie too. I felt its feet when it went by. Ronny Barak was amazing as well. All in all, well worth the money and time.

That's real stupid to pay to shake ppl's hands...

At our concert, people got to meet Uematsu for free... we got Youmi Kimura's autograph for free...the world of damned moneymakers!

Wow, did anyone get the Dear Friends CD? I thought it was from another concert >_>;; It's just famous pieces from other FF games. BLEHHHHH. I should never have assumed. =(

PS. I got the program. Does anyone want to see it?

i want to see it dude!
post it or send it if you can-!
now about dear friends cd, is it a new cd, or the FFV arranged cd, or what???

It was released (as said on the back) in 2005. And then they had a More Friends poster right next to it, so I assumed it was their Dear Friends concert... only to find out it was some stupid shit. I'm going to file a complaint.. err... =(

And sure, I'll scan it and post it tonight.

edit: Here's a sample XP

Nope, that wasn't me. I only ran into one person from GFF, horseman85. Though I did meet two interesting (non-GFF, as far as I know) people during the concert. Sat next to one guy who was nice to chat with, and I ran into someone else after the show and we mourned our mutual getting-screwed-by-the-Hummingbird-Centre because they waited until the last minute to send out the emails about the post-show get-together. Wankers.

I was sitting about ten feet away from Uematsu! I think I have two pictures of the side of his head on my camera somewhere. I'll post 'em when I download the pictures.

Is the Dear Friends CD really just a "best of" thing? Blow. That's such tremendous false advertising. At least the concert programme is nice.

There were so many amazing performances during this concert. The Chrono, Castlevania, and Warcraft suites were fantastic, and so were most of the other performances (minus poor Theme of Laura). That drummer was amazing, and Shenmu guy's piano performance was hilarious. I wish the little nitpicky crap hadn't bogged the show down for me. The spotlight work was bad, the close-ups of the orchestra on the screens seemed to focus more on performers sitting there waiting for their cues than the people doing solos, there were those random explosions during the first half of the show (piano strings snapping, I think), and-- Well, it's not a Hummingbird Centre problem so much as a Play! problem, but S-E really come off as a bunch of stingy assholes when their songs are pretty much the only ones without cut scenes playing on the screens (with the exception of Kingdom Hearts for some reason).

Any recordings released yet? I tried (a friend desperately wanted to hear the Castlevania suite), but I'm pretty sure her recorder gave up its battery-ghost near the beginning of the show. Boo-urns.

Wow, I can't believe they used KH visuals...

SE has strict guidelines that visuals aren't to be used unless it's an all SE concert.

Oh yeah, there were KH visuals... but I shielded my eyes the entire piece. I didn't beat KH2 yet! ._.

And opps, I forgot to scan the program, I'll do that now. XP

It sounds like the Toronto concert was quite a treat. I would have loved to have seen the awesome Takenobu Mitsuyoshi singing! I'm glad that Castlevania is likely becoming part of the main concert program. I'm not sure if I agree with the decision of cutting Battlefield for B.L.A.C.K, given it was a good representation of European VGM, though understand it probably doesn't work well without Barrak (even though he was there this time). The Soule seems a bit overkill, though it's high-quality symphonic music, so I'm not complaining much. :)

I'm interested to see how PLAY! will cope now that Thomas Boecker has quietly bowed out. I'm not sure of his exact role, though believe he was actively involved in the musical side and used his sincere love for game music and experience with the Symphonic Game Music Concert series to diversify and refine the program. Jason Michael Paul Productions make all the money from PLAY!, which Thomas is and never was part of, though it seems the budget is often too tight to the point that musicians and special guests often miss out. I'm glad that Thomas will be continuing the Leipzig series and, presumably, eventually Merregnon 3. It's a shame he's leaving, but given the continued commerce vs. art/quality/decency controversy, I guess he didn't want to be associated with a series that hasn't entirely fulfilled its musical potential.

SeRaPH, do you ever learn? Your lordly founding director/violinist status continues to be undermined by your complete lack of restraint and professionalism. I read your blog earlier and was frankly appalled by some of your directly offensive personal comments. Besides, you've made your point clear enough, so there's no need to restort to posts that verge on spam.

I wonder where the next concerts will be held? I am going to keep attending until I meet Uematsu :D!

I'm still hoping it comes to montreal... Toronto aint that far away..

Just pulled my pictures off my camera from the Toronto show. I got three pictures of Uematsu, and this was the best one. I'm still disappointed that I didn't get an autograph, but at least I got SOMETHING.

http://barhaven.casualvillain.com/St...es/Uematsu.jpg

2.jpg
(http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/at...g?d=1159907065)

Song #17... Someone may want to inform the Play folks that One Winged Angel is from Final Fantasy VII and not VIII.

:)


T.T.

anoter reason to love t. t. he is always so helpful. :) play should hire you now!!!
your show is so much better with all teh orginal arrangements. YOU ARE THE BEST!!!

Oh woah. Didn't even notice it... didn't even read the program yet =S

I WANT REFUND! GR!

Well, seems it's been a while since anyone cared to post about PLAY!, but I just thought I'd share the news that Machinae Supremacy will be part of the act performing FFVI's Dancing Mad at the 2 Play! concerts coming up in Sweden.

www.machinaesupremacy.com

And for all my Australian/Asian compatriots, Play! concert is coming to Australia/New Zealand in a couple months fron now.

http://www.ausgamers.com/?news=2383748

- Spike

Hmph, given the bad press from Play!, I wonder what it will take me to go to their concert... Not guests appearance cause they CHARGE you for meeting them.

Whoever wrote this must be living under a rock, what about Eminence?! Support your locals dammit, not lying foreign producers! The concert this year was just as good as VGL's, and way better than Play!'s subpar arrangments.

I think the only way for me to go is if someone pays for my ticket... But we'll see, maybe the program will improve.

Man, why every time something exciting happens in Australia it always has to be @ the east coast >_<

Perth never had any attention... *sigh*

I want to see the lineups before deciding whether to go or not XD

CC, you're from Perth? Adelaide here, same deal for me as far as no concerts :)


Kairi, I agree 100%. Charging for meeting is silly, and I guess typifies Sydney in my mind- user pays for everything.

I also noticed the 'first time something of this scale' comment. <shrugs> Guess it depends who's in who's pockets (or if you're ignorant which is probably the case here).

- Spike

Hey, we don't charge to meet 7 guests from Japan... >.>

The upcoming Sweden concerts look excellent. I was at the last one and the atmosphere was incredible. What a venue too! If this is the same, it'll be surely a hit, particularly with all the nifty bonus additions. Pity I can't make it, but I have exams. However, I'm going to Leipzig. :D

Akira Yamaoka will travel around the world with Play next month! First stop: Stockholm June 2nd, then to Sydney for four concerts there. Great news indeed, especially for me living in Sweden!

Additional Spam:
Oh, and do not forget about this year's Play premiere, in San Jose tomorrow!

I demand this to be recorded by someone attending the concert.

....Akira is coming to Sydney?

GODDAMIT! Play! just HAD to give me a reason to wanna go to their concert! But its gonna cost me 100 bucks JUST to see him!

Argh Dilemma dilemma....

Then again... My Silent Hill CDs are back in Hong Kong so there's nothing for him to sign...

I am just totally screwed either way....

I totally agree.

And Kairi Li: why not have someone send your Silent Hill CDs to you?

Additional Spam:
Now that the San Jose concert is history: please tell us all about ;)

Even if they did bring the CDs over for me, it will cost alot of money just to see Akira. Play! charges people for meet and greets.

Now THAT I didn't know o___o

That's one thing I love about Eminence's concerts...all you do is have to wait in the insanely long line XD
But it's damn well worth it in the end XD

I'm thinking of going to Play, but I dunno.
It's still too damn expensive, as are almost all events at the Opera House.
If THEY paid me to go, or if I could get free tickets, THEN I'd go XD

Have they ever released any of the Play concerts as a CD yet?

Nope, no CDs or DVDs. Yet.

The concert in Sweden totally ruled! I loved it!

So, impressions?
How was "Dancing Mad"? Better than the Leipzig version?

I loved the show in Sweden yesterday, but the best thing about it is that I got to shake Akira Yamaoka's hand. He also signed my ticket.

PLAY! SJ Coverage / JMP Interview
 

Hey everyone,

I was able to do a writeup of the PLAY! concert in San Jose last week, and also interviewed Jason Michael Paul and found out why there isn't a CD/DVD and why Uematsu won't be working with Koichi Sugiyama any time soon!

http://www.music4games.net/Features_Index.aspx

I'm also waiting for a comprehensive Jeremy Soule interview to be posted, so watch for that!

Overall, it was a good show, but they didn't debut Lost Odyssey as promised and instead there was a 14 minute suite from Lair. That was disappointing.

Seems like they tend to not keep their promises from what I've heard, so this doesn't surprise me at all. Cancelling concerts, switching programs despite annoucements... Its one thing to make mistakes or things didn't go through occasionally, but Play! seems to always have some sort of sloppy organizing or just plain fibbing for the past couple of concerts. They should learn to NOT announce something untill its fully ready to happen, otherwise you're causing dissapointment to fans who may have already pre order tickets.

And god forbid if anyone here is gonna post they didn't even refund the pre order. Though again, that would not surprise me.

Its crap like this that is swaying me to the "not going" crowd despite Akira's appearance.

Hey now, I dunno if I'd go that far. Keep in mind that Jason Michael Paul organizes all of this himself, and he works really hard. The single concert cacnellation that ocurred was due to low ticket sales. As JMP is the sole backer of this project, he can't afford to put on a show for 100 people in the audience. That's business, and that's nothing on the scale of what happened with VGL in 2005.

Aside from that, yeah, Lost Odyssey was a problem, but they simply ran out of time with the orchestra. I wish they had cut out Lair and put in Lost Odyssey, Actraiser, and Castelvania, but the Lair suite itself was pretty cool, even if it was too long.

It's a great show, and the unique arrangements of Mario, Zelda, Oblivion, and Chrono Cross/Trigger are worth going to the show to see. While there were some disappointments, I was satisfied, and highly recommend seeing the show.

It's not really about cancelling shows and what is business.

VGM shouldn't be a business.
It really isn't.

There is no way for young people to enjoy Symphonic VGM and still make a business out of it.

JMP is a businessman and I respect that. As a business owner, I respect his action on doing this but as a Symphonic VGM Evangelist, he has my absolute disrespect. Obviously, his prices were outrageously high so people couldn't come.

I just hope, one day, people who work in the VGM field would NOT think about the profit they make, but actually making a real contribution to a genre of music which would benifit a lot of people by being spread around the world. I only hope...

I don't know how a business owner could come to that conclusion. Of course VGM is a business, and of course it should be. All the CDs are out there because the company wants to make a profit on their investment. Talented composers are selected to score games based on the value they'll add to the game, not for the sake of art.

The ticket prices are reasonable for such a niche show. I can't see how people complain about a $40 ticket when tickets to go see ANY mainstream artist range between $20 and $100 a pop. Obviously JMP needs to at least break even of these things, and as it's his livelihood, I don't think we can expect him to put on events out of "love" for game music; he has to put food on the table. Even more, the orchestra has to be paid, the venue, promotion, etc., so that's just ridiculous. =)

With VGM I'm pretty sure this is only true for Square-Enix's CD releases, others likely struggle to get even.
Edit: I guess I could include Falcom as well...

Unique arrangements my ass.

The Chrono arrangments were mostly already existed, with some orchestrations yes, but the way it was put together showed there wasn't that much work. The ending part with Frog's theme and To Far Away times? Its straight from the PS1 anime ending. I've heard the Trigger theme performed in the much older concert CD, along with Eminence's version of Time's Scar. Both did in my opinion a better performance, and didn't hinder it by throwing it into a copy and paste medley. Something about Time's Scar in the Play! medley puts me off. Maybe is the inclusion of Brass.

Kingdom Hearts? Oh god don't even get me started. Invited someone like Yoko to the premiere only to play less than 1 min of her work in a 4 min medley? Should have invited Utada instead. And there was no original arrangment in that one, cept some bad Copy and Paste that caused the themes to NOT flow well together.

The arrangments for Mario, Zelda already existed in other concerts and CDs way before Play! 's time, so again, no real original work was put into it.

MGS theme was just... meh, it was original, but it wasn't even good. VGL was better, and the Eminence's version was also bad ass. I mean, just listen to the beginning, terrible build up to a great theme with just strings, this isn't chamber you know. The drums were playing this weird beat that just throws me off, its really messy and creates dissonance. And no it has nothing to do with the crappy quality of the fan's recording device. If the theme wasn't already strong the whole thing would have fallen apart. And worst is there isn't too much going on between the SAME MAIN THEME being played OVER and OVER. VGL and Eminence combined various main themes from the main game, where as Play! kept playing on the same theme over and over in a very mediocre arrangement. The ending sucked as well, with a slow up the scale ABCD with the theme? Wow, pathetic attempt at dramatic exit. Sounds like a amatuer studen arrangement to me and created little dramatic tension, where as Eminence gave it a very symphonic feeling, and VGL gave it a very cinematic treatement.

You want a unique GOOD arrangement? Listen to Eminence's version of MGS on youtube, or VGL's.

Compare this from Eminece and VGL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfKA4b5SFq4 (The part at 2:14 kicks so much ass.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_6LG8dyE0U (The part at 3:25 creats great tension players felt when they infiltrate in the game. Simplistic but very effective.)

Both have very strong endings with the slow military drum beat that makes it sound like an anthem and tribute to the soldiers.

To this from Play!:

http://media.putfile.com/Metal-gear-Solid-from-Play (Mediocre compare to the above. I felt NOTHING.)

The new works are more impressive, like Blue Dragon and what not, but those were likely arranged already by the original composers. Silent Hill only rocked when Akira was there to perform, and its the only reason I'm very tempted to go. (Well, and the fact its gonna be at the friggin Opera House and the Sydney Symphony, which means superb performance and acoustics, but if the arrangements are mediocre, why bother?)

Play! has the money and resources to do ALOT better, and JMP needs to stop pulling the "My Girlfriend works at Square Enix" card to boost whatever he's trying to pull. Though I am glad they're trying to expand their program, but the sudden change from Lost Oddesey to Lair is disconcerting. Oh, and charging fans to meet and greets is retarded no matter what.

And I doubt game soundtracks make as much profit as one thinks, and I do believe they're released for the sake of the art moreso than just business, look at Mitsuda, alot of his albums latly are from very obscure games not many have really played. He releases it because there are fans who appreciate his work. Most business would have turned away from releasing soundtracks from games no ones heard of, but Mitsuda didn't. And I don't see him hopping on board for some major big game either.

There is always some level of business in anything, but I believe VGM and anime music DOES have some goddamn integrity and art left, alot more than Hollywood movies defintly. When I went to VGL and Eminence, I see alot of work and love put into them. What I have seen from Play! so far in both arrangments and organizing? I don't get the same vibe, and see no reason to waste MY money to see them depsite the fact they have great guests, whom they CHARGE people to meet them.

I didn't entirely like Eminence's arrangement. Quite powerful and creative, but the drum kit didn't work too great. Definitely has its moments. Just my opinion though so don't bite me for it. ;)

PLAY! sticks well to the Metal Gear Solid original but is also a new arrangement. I respect that and it has grown on me. My favourite of the three is VGL's, though.

Are you kidding? The drum kit is what MADE it great for Eminence! Play!'s drums were horrid, messy and create dissonance throughout the piece. VGL had the advantage of synth. If Eminence didnt use the drums, it would have lost ALOT of its tension and it would feel dry. And MGS is all about tension, be it action or stealth.

And Play!'s version may be new and original, but its no excuse to crappy mediocre arranging. I'll respect it when they actually put some actual good work into it instead of throwing it together like some highschool homework. And its grating after listening to it on repeat for the night. The VGL and Eminence one? God it makes me feel good. Passion from KH2 needed some getting used to and it will grow on you because its experimental. This MGS theme by Play! does not because it plains sucks

I stated my opinion. You claimed yours was a fact.

I agree percussion was needed, but preferred VGL's use rather than a simple drum kit. I guess it came down to economics.

I have a question for you, Kairi, about the "uniqueness" of the arrangements Play uses: who gives a shit? Is it really that important to you? I mean, no matter how much arranging they do, they're all still the MGS theme, and they all still sound pretty good (this shouldn't even matter, since taste is subjective). I mean, I think the only legitimate complaint you could level against these guys is that they never perform anything else except the main themes (something I'd like to see happen).

Now, I haven't been to any of these concerts, but aside from you, I haven't heard anyone call any of them "thrown together". Like the interview said, JMP is paying for these with his own money, and it's his livelihood on the line. He's not going to make a crappy concert if he can.

Right, because as long as there's money involved the quality has to be good right?

Then tell me why there are god knows how many crappy movies in the world.

Money doesn'y equal quality. Where as VGL and Eminence actually work to make sure their arrangments are the best as possible, Play! not only barely does any work, but when they do it comes out crappy.

Just because it involves money doesn't mean the concert isn't gonna be crappy. Now Play! is not TOTAL crap, but it could be alot better with the franchises involved. I like them to get some better arrangers for one thing. Money is no shield or excuse when it comes to cristism and quality control. Some of us enjoy studying music and like to see better arrangements of VGM. The Play!'s version is no where as good as what VGL and Eminence did, and it sounds so amatuer as well. Like something out of a highschool music student. Some of us do give a shit about well arranged music.

You say money means the music can't be crappy? I've heard fan remixes of VGM that sound better than what Play! did to MGS. Dedication and talent is what makes good music, not money.

And most of my complaints were legit. If I was Yoko, I like to hear MY music played when I'm invited to a concert as a composer guest, instead of a 10% part in a medley. The crappy cut and paste job for the KH theme was horrid and insulting to her.

Arrangment is essential to any piece of music, and its more important for VGM BECAUSE it started with beeps and bops. How is game music gonna be taken seriously if people like Play! butcher the arrangments? Anyone can make up a tune, the arrangement is hard and crucial part.

And Mr.X, Eminence wanted to keep things symphonic and not rely on synths, hence the drum kit. And the beat was alot better than the mess Play! called a drum beat. Considering the changes from synth to drum kit, they did a superb job and the theme was still energetic and cinematic/modern sounding. While I regonise its your opinion, by comparison, the Play!'s version sound so bland, where as Eminence actually sounds like it could be from the soundtrack.

Please don't imply that Eminence is trying to scrimp their budget when you don't know the full situation.

Debates with you go round in circles, so I'm just replying once...

Haha! That's so funny. You exemplified my point wonderfully. They should kept the drum kit out if they wanted to stay symphonic, as a drum kit is not an orchestral instrument. They could have done a lot with a carefully selected section of percussion instruments.

Opinion, not fact.

If you did, you'd not state objectively 'by comparison, the Play's version sound so bland'... That implies that my opinion is contradicted by a fact.

Sorry, Eminence 'Volunteer' #3881, but I don't know the intricacies of their budget.

Then don't imply anything if you dont' know anything about it. Sheesh.

And while a drum kit is techincallly not part of the orchestra, MGS is a modern theme that requires some sort of modern beat. I can't say that the orchestral percussion can cut it. I mean look at Play!'s version, its a mess cause they seem to wanna replicate a modern rock beat on orchestral percussion, but it sounds like a total mess. I can barely decipher each beat.

Point is, Eminence had stated before they will NOT be using electronics and synths. To me, that sounds like anything else is fair game, as I last recall the drum kit is NOT electronic.

Funny thing, I'm not even a volunteer. I just support them. If anything you should have called me a fangirl to insult me. But at least I actually went to their concert instead of making assumptions.

Now let's stop derailing the thread, I had my say in this whole matter, and I believe my critisims are legit.

Actually, PLAY!'s arrangements aren't terrible; they're the best in the business. And I can guarantee you, that's a fact, not an opinion.

And frankly, I have no idea why you're posting in a PLAY! thread when all you do is piss all over them.

Heh, sarcasm eh?

Maybe its because as well as praise there should be some critisim (and from the crap Play! has done in both organizing and arrangment, they deserve it), and I still respond to Play! news that I care about, like say, Akira san coming to good ol's Sydney.

I am still debating on that...

And there's a part of me that has this lingering hope that they will improve themselves.

Bottom line is, this is constructive critism, which I believe I have the right to post on. The only thing Play! can rely on is desperate fans wanting to hear their fav game music live, along with meeting their fav composers. That doesn't affect me much since I've met most of my fav composers (Minus Akira) and I've heard most of the themes live already in other concerts that arranged and peformed better. For those fans, go ahead and have fun, but I have a feeling their money will be more well spend if they went to another concert that's NOT Play!, saves them the extra bucks needed to meet their idols as well as avoiding the horror of the MGS butchery. (Among others I mentioned).

If in the end despite my legit reasons you still wanna support them, go right ahead. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Oh Jesus... <_<

You guys should really get a grip, seriously.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, Kairi.

I think Eminence did better in their MGS arrangement than either PLAY or VGL.

PLAY's arrangement was...interesting...but the whole point of playing the main MGS theme is to invoke excitement and spine-tingling thrills, which this particular version did not do. It was rather repetitive, to be honest.

VGL's arrangement didn't seem to have any effort at all put in. They just did a straight conversion of the MGS2 theme, not even bothering to do their own version of the synth beat, instead relying on a pre-recorded track.

Eminence's arrangement of the MGS3 theme is far superior I reckon. The percussionists did an excellent job replacing the synth beats, and still managed to make the song a thrilling experience.
Compare this to Eminence's ANIF05 arrangement of the MGS2 theme, which was absolutely shocking! They brought in a synth drummer, but he was just all over the place, and they tried to add in Taiko drums, which were just too loud and were the final nails in the coffin.

Eminence DEFINITELY improved in that regard...kudos to them. Their risks pulled off.

The bottom line is that PLAY! and VGL are completely different events that are doing two separate things. I don't know enough about Emminence to comment on it, so I won't.

VGL is a show before it's a game concert. It does an amazing job syncing the video and lighting, and I love the interactive segments. However, you can't really call it an orchestral concert as it features as few as 24 musicians on stage for a number of pieces.

PLAY! is a symphonic concert before it's a show. The syncing is actually not that good, and I think they should just remove the screen all together. However, 69 musicians and a 24 member choir definitely provides a rich, full sound that I have not heard at any of the 4 VGL shows I've attended, and that's okay. I like what each show focuses on, and I believe they offer two very different experiences.

And yeah, the PLAY! arrangements are, for the most part, unique, and written specifically for PLAY!. VGL plays the Mario and Zelda suites that were found on the Orchestral Game Concert CDs, while PLAY! has brand new arrangements. I enjoy the MGS piece at both shows, but they are very different. VGL overlays electronic percussion through the speakers, while PLAY! orchestrates the percussion, which I quite enjoyed. The Chrono Cross/Trigger suite was one of my favorites of the night, and ask anyone who has gone to one of these shows: it's the highlight. Mitsuda has been quoted saying that the arrangement was written specifically for PLAY! in interviews.

The fact of the matter is that I speak with JMP frequently, and never has he mentioned any connection with Square-Enix through family. In fact, JMP worked for Squaresoft for a period of time where he did promotion and marketing, and this is where he established his contacts within the company. For more information regarding this, see the interview that was just published last week: http://www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=143

What I can't figure out is why everyone is so critical of these game concerts when really, they're all we have. I don't know how long I've waited for these concerts to travel outside of Japan, and now that the are, everyone just whines and moans about them. Go see them for yourselves, then be the judge!

You can claim it's constructive criticism, but when you've endlessly posted here bashing PLAY! without having even attended a concert. Besides, the criticism about the arrangement was obviously biased for the sake of spin in favour of Eminence (who I'm still convinced you work for, sorry). After all, Nic Raine arranged for the OGC series (his arrangements are featured from that in VGL) and is certainly a competent arranger.

Personally, I think Kairi should be removed from this thread. He/she constantly trolls it and disrupts discussion for everyone else. Something like this related to the VGL thread wouldn't be considered acceptable. Of course, Jason isn't a member here so I guess little impetus to...

Anyway, Arcubalis' words are wise ones. As Tommy said, SUPPORT EVERYBODY.

I take it you didn't catch the sarcasm? I was making fun of Kairi for passing his/her opinion of the PLAY! arrangements off as fact.

Arcubalis speaks the truth. His last paragraph, in particular, is something to make good note of.

I think of Play! as the better event. It is more sophisticated and is more of a traditional orchestral concert. I also, since I'm an arranger and composer, found it to be a learning experience. I got to meet with some of the guests in Detroit, and it really is a great opportunity to meet those in the business. The Play! series is just more professional and I respect that. The arrangements from the tour are great as well, and I agree with Arcubalis that they need to get rid of that screen. It sometimes distracts me because I'm trying to watch the footage, and that keeps me from completely enjoying the music. Play! is a traditional concert with traditional orchestral values, but with a new era of music, and that people, is music from games :).

I won't comment on Eminence's version of MGS due to inability to look at the video. But has anyone heard the version of MGS performed by Play! with Ronny Barak as solo percussionist? His instrument and his unique style of playing adds a lot of flair to Play!'s arrangement and makes it significantly different from the others.

Wise words indeed. Thanks for summing up what I wanted to say.

Oh I dont really like how the thread is spinning off.

All I wanted to comment was that PLAY! is making a lot of money through these events. Easiest thing to find out how is calculate all the reserves and ticket prices, work out their income minus orchestra, venue, PR and other expenses.

Thing which disgusts me is that we make sure our prices are so low, and we often make a huge financial loss which we have in nearly every concert. However, we need to get young people into the halls because that is our aim. PLAY! is a commercial business. I respect that but has my ultimate disrespect when they claim otherwise. If they say they want to spread this music to a lot of people, their ticketing price is putting everyone off. What's this thing about you got to pay to have a few words with the composers, shake their hand and get an autograph? You know, the guests usually don't get paid, and some guests had to pay for their own airfee to PLAY! event? (Previous events, not sure about now)

Their arrangements and stuff, I won't really have much to say except they do unique "artistic" arrangement.

Something for Mr X, you mentioned that a drum kit isnt symphonic. That's true and we don't aim to be just symphonic, it is more on the lines of being acoustic. I don't think our version of the arrangement is in anyway superior to others. This time, we chose an arranger from Japan who did the symphonic game concert in Tokyo with Konami to do our music.

Anyway enough bitching about PLAY!, I really shouldnt be since some people told me it'll make me look unprofessional. I just hope JMP will look back at what he's doing and what he's done, rethink about his influences to the market he is making, and perhaps put in a positive turn. He CAN bring so much positive change to this market.

Its clear you'll use whatever excuse you want to make PLAY look like crap and use that as an excuse NOT to attend.

I am sure in response to that, you'll say "They don't need my help to do that! LOLZ!" For christ sake, why the hell are you so bitchy about PLAY?! Perhaps I'll be the first to say that your comments are getting a wee bit old.

:twitch: That sounds like a personal problem. While I think the ethnic drums are better suited to that specific piece, the rock ensemble is a rather ballsy instrumental choice that simply doesn't work according to your sense of taste...or rather your dislike of PLAY as a whole.

I doubt you've even been to Play.

Could've fooled me! :D

I attended one of the concerts in Stockholm June 2nd and enjoyed it very much. My favorites were the Castlevania medley (Wicked Child! Pipe organ!), Shadow of the Colossus and Dancing Mad. Dancing Mad wasn't perfect, but it was so great to be able to be there when they performed it in this unique arrangement.

About Play charging to meet the composers. Yes, they did that in Chicago last year, but as far as I remember they haven't done it afterwards. For example, everyone was free to meet with and get things signed by Akira Yamaoka, Arnie Roth, Gustaf Grefberg (+ co-composer) and Machinae Supremacy.

Do you know which song they played from Shadow of the Colossus?

Yes, they played "Epilogue - Those Who Remain". And they performed fantastic. Kow Otani is such a good composer. Although "Epilogue" is one of my favorites I had my hopes for a battle medley, but I guess I have to wait a little bit more for that one. And the way "Epilogue" turned out I couldn't be happier.

Please, ask more questions regarding the concert and I will try to answer as best as I can. I can already now say that I was impressed by the Uematsu piece for Lost Odyssey. Looking forward to the soundtrack.

Linkleton:

The Darkness

Elder Scrolls: Oblivion

Super Mario Bros. Theme

The Legend of Zelda Suite

Castlevania Suite

Theme of Laura

Dancing Mad Part 1 + Dancing Mad Part 2

I wont get into the idiotic discussion weither PLAY! sucks or not, since I'm so greatful that it's the only big and official game concert thats ever been in Sweden.

Let's instead talk about the different songs! That's a lot more interesting than hearing opinions about the concerts construction and whatever else that's been discussed so far.

My clear favourite was the Castlevania medley. The arrangement of Vampire Killer and Wicked Child was great, although I have heard it before on the Dracula New Classic CD, but when the third song came I nearly started to cry cuz of the dramatic power of it! I still dont know what song it is, but it was definitely the strongest part of the concert in my opinion, with the sad and desperate song from the choir, the strings and flutes with their fast tempo, the strong drums and of course the pipe organ.
I don't know which effect this suite had on other listeners on the other concerts around the world, but it was definitely this one that made the swedish crowd wake up and praise the concert as we did last year!

Best songs: Chrono Cross/Trigger Suite and Oblivion Suite! I really love what they did in the "Watchman's Ease" portion (second half) of the Oblivion Suite. During the violin solo, they used a nipple gong to make the arrangement sound more Asian-inspired than the original piece.

I know that the answer is likely "No already!", but has anyone heard anything about whether a Play! album is being released...or anything including that arrangement of Chrono Trigger/Cross? I'd pay money to hear Time's Scar played again like they did for me in Chicago.

I asked Jason Michael Paul about a possible CD/DVD release when we met in Stockholm and (as assumed) unfortunately there are problems with getting approvement from all companies for such a release. Too bad for us, but hopefully someday it will be possible.

The problem could be arrangements from Western games being played. The Orchestral Game Concert CDs didn't seem to have problems with getting approvements from the game companies.

Jason and I discussed this at length in this interview that I previously posted:

http://www.music4games.net/Features_Display.aspx?id=143

The problem is Nintendo. Nintendo won't allow arrangements for Zelda and Mario to appear on the CD, and the people who would be backing the CD won't allow a CD release without those titles. The fact of the matter is that there is both audio and video recordings of Dear Friends, More Friends, and PLAY!, but they will most likely never see the light of day, unfortunately.

Great interview!

*head meets table*

Just Nintendo the big soundtrack releaser :annoyed:

Haha, yeah. Koji Kondo gave a keynote at GDC this year. There was a Q&A afterwards, and I forgot to ask him about CD releases of soundtracks at Nintendo!

Thanks for being responsible for the Twilight Princess OST never being released. :tpg:

Seriously: I don't understand why they can't just let their tracks be included on the album. They've done it before.

I was really surprised to find out late last year that the Singapore Arts Festival was going to feature Play! at the Esplanade Concert Hall from 15-16 June 2007. Impressive, I thought at the time. Who'd thought anyone would give the little red dot any notice to stage something like Play!.

As usual, I bought tickets late (but fortunately managed to get them). I was shocked to discover that both evening shows were sold out and the 16 June matinee tickets were selling really, really fast. In fact, they're already sold out. I remember how the Singapore leg of Passion by Eminence was sold out or very close to selling out as well.

Play! is now the single most successful performance for the month long Arts Fest here. Quite incredible, if you ask me. I think it did better sales-wise than even Ian McKellen's King Lear production that's to be staged pretty soon. I had no idea there were so many other game junkies in Singapore that were remotely interested in VGM. Which makes me wonder why most music shops still don't carry VGM soundtracks.

I do realise that Play! can be a bit over the top in some ways when it comes to embodying "commercialism" so if they try to at least tone down their scandalous (and, if I might add, embarrassing) scam tactics that have been mentioned numerous times already, I think I should be a rather happy fanboy later today. But I do note that they are selling their concert programme booklets at a ridiculous price (I think even musical programmes are cheaper), which calls for some serious concern and brow knotting. Oh dear.

Stuff is typically $15.00 USD, with the posters being $10.00 USD or so. Not too expensive. Not sure if they're going to change the prices there or what. It's a great show, so I hope you enjoy it! And I don't think there are any scams or scandalous commercialism going on with the shows. =)

Let us know how it goes!

Not anymore hopefully. Do they still do "VIP tickets" for meet and greet stuff?

Don't know, but that's not really a scam. Go to a rock show that has VIP tickets to meet the band after the show. Same thing.

Depends on whether they cover the visiting VIP artists' costs or not. I guess you weren't here when it was reported from the first couple PLAY! concerts that the composers had to pay their flight themselves while visitors were still asked to pay the "VIP" premium. As I wrote before, not anymore hopefully.

Just came back from Play!. Was mildly surprised that some of my friends were performing as part of the Festival Choir for the vocal parts. And that my choir's music director helped to put the Festival Choir together from two of his other choirs. I think my friends have just finished performing for the evening performance even as I type. :P

So how was the concert? Well, it was ok, not bad. I went in with very high expectations and was quite disappointed on a few fronts but there were many great moments as well.

First, with regards to merchandise, I was quite disappointed. The range was very limited, the prices were somewhat high and didn't really interest me (T-shirts, posters and only one CD from a past performance). And no original soundtracks or scores. The only thing that seemed mildly interesting to me was the souvenir programme booklet that had a lot of nice pictures and interesting text but at S$30, that's quite a lot to pay for. In the end, I decided to save my cash to get myself The Transformers movie Bumblebee and Scorponok deluxe toys to add to my robot collection. :P

Since Takenobu Mitsuyoshi of Shemue fame was the only guest composer at the performance, there wasn't much of a problem of having to pay to get an autograph (as was the problem with some previous Play! concerts, I believe) because I think there was no autograph signing session to speak of. *shrugs* That said, I was a bit disappointed Yuzo Koshiro didn't make an appearance as I had initially thought he would. I was half expecting some Ys at the concert but that's wishful thinking, of course.

I happened to bump into a colleague (small world) and he griped about how the performance was quite amateurish. He was kind of disappointed as a result. I do share his sentiment to an extent but I do think that on the whole the performers still did a fairly good job, both the Festival Orchestra and Choir.

While the orchestra was engaging for the most part, I felt that they could be more cohesive and fluid. You could tell the choir was quite amateur but they did add to the enjoyment of the concert and put in a good effort. The female chorus had quite a fairly good blend and a nice sweet quality to their voices which was great for some songs but not necessarily for others. The male chorus had gusto but pity their blend was somewhat poorer than the girls.

As for the actual concert content, it was generally good. I'll quickly run down the song list:

1) Play! "Fanfare" - Uematsu composed this specially for the Play! concerts. Nice and rousing.

2) Super Mario Bros "Suite" - Very hard to go wrong with this Kondo medley of classics. Definitely a crowd pleaser as always.

3) Shenmue I & II "Sedge Tree" - Anticpated this very much and was not diappointed. Breathtakingly beautiful.

4) Lost Odyssey "Main Theme" - There's a haunting beauty about this one, and the female chorus does wonders to the song.

5) Sonic the Hedgehog "Suite" - Never really been a fan of most Sonic music but this medley was surprisingly not too bad. BUT I did enjoy the Starlight Zone theme (one of the few Sonic tracks I like a lot) at the end.

6) Metar Gear Solid "Main Theme" - Gosh, this must be one of the highlights of the concert. Great energy and presence.

7) Blue Dragon "Main Theme" - This was not bad but I wasn't terribly drawn to the song.

8) Kingdom Hearts "Suite" - Another highly anticpated track. Started with the opening lines of the orchestral version of "Hikari" before going into the end credits march (but minus the fantastic "Dearly Beloved" theme :(). The transition was not as fluid as I'd hoped but the one into "Passion" was good, as was the performance of the song. The arrangement was slightly different than the one from the soundtrack, I think. I was griping at how Utada Hikaru was not given composer credits. She did compose "Hikari" and "Passion", right?

9) Final Fantasy VI "Dancing Mad" - Wow. Incredible. The pipe organ (yes, a real pipe organ) was fantastic, never mind that I think a few notes were played wrongly. Choir did a nice job on this one. I think this is only the second time ever in a concert leg that "Dancing Mad" is performed live (I can almost hear the fanboys rejoicing). Pity someone decided to cut out the memorable rock part of the final phase battle with a certain mad clown. :( But nevertheless one of the best items in the entire concert.

- Intermission - with some people milling about to take pictures with a gigantic Blue Dragon mascot. I pity the guy in the costume. It must have been rather hot. :P

10) Daytona USA - I think the song performed here is titled "Sky High". Takenobu Mitsuyoshi came up on stage to perform this piece on piano and even sang. Neat. And Mitsuyoshi's a fun guy to boot. The song proper is rather catchy and nice, too.

11) The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion "Suite" - Exceedingly beautiful. Didn't know Oblivion music was this good.

12) Chrono Trigger and Cross "Suite" - The individual songs in the medley were mostly very nice ("Remiscence" from CC, CT main theme, "Time's Scar", Frog's theme, "To Far Away Times", and maybe something else I missed), but the transitions were kind of abrupt and less than satisfying for the most part. I was also a bit disappointed that the lead violin melody in "Time's Scar" was usually drowned by the orchesta. Could be fixed with having more violinists playing the melody as opposed to one lone soloist.

13) World of Warcraft "Suite" - Very dramatic and heavy-handed. It was rather nice but I thought the choir could have been heavier on this song. The female chorus soloist (I think) was quite good, though.

14) That Bungie Sci-fi FPS for Xbox "Suite" (because typing the game title results in some strange stuff...) - It's always great to hear the familiar main theme from the game. The male chorus was not too shabby on this one. Generally a nice medley and I rather like the energy on the song.

15) Castlevania "Suite" - Fairly interesting medley. Some familiar tunes showed up. Thought it could have been even better, though.

16) The Legend of Zelda "Suite" - Very beautiful opening that leads into the fan favourite main theme. The rest of the song is quite goof, but the ending was too sudden for my liking. A bit more development and lead in would have been welcomed.

17) Final Fantasy VII "One-Winged Angel" - A crowd pleaser and actually very well performed. The chorus could have been a bit fuller and louder but still a great performance. Easily another highlight of the concert.

18) Shinobi (encore piece) - I was pleasantly how surprised how nice this was. Beautiful. But it's quite funny to see "Revenge of Shinobi" splashed on the screen.

Two more rounds of long applause but no luck with a second encore.

Overall, the concert was fairly enjoyable. It didn't quite meet all my expectations and I think some of the arrangements could be tighter and the transitions more seamless. Still an ok performance and there were some great moments.

But that said, I think I enjoyed myself much more at the Passion concert by Eminence. Maybe it was the smaller setting and the greater intimacy but I thought the songs performed by the band at that concert were more beautiful (good song selection had a large part to play) and had more character. And there was a lot of Eminence CDs and Mitsuda merchandise to buy and even an artiste autograph session (with Mitusda as well).

Wasn't Yuzo Koshiro there DJ'ing music before the concert? And are you sure that there wasn't an autograph session after any of the three concerts?

Three sold-out concerts in Singapore. Five in Sydney? Ah, it will be hard but we'll see what happens.

I'd have to check with my friends for the other two performances because after the Saturday Matinee, I certainly didn't see Mitsuyoshi anywhere. And no, Koshiro wasn't doing any DJing. :( It was a simple case of playing songs from various game soundtracks piped in through the speakers.

From what I gather, I think there were people from various parts of the region who came down to Singapore for the concert. Which in hindsight isn't too surprising since it's the Asian premiere of Play!.

Who was the lucky person that got the sonic he threw into the crowd?

That's a big bump.

FYI for the MD/DC/VA people if you didn't already know, PLAY! is coming back to the area, this time at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, July 18th. Two years ago it was at Wolf Trap. I think it conflicted with Otakon last time around; not the case this time.

Anyway, I'm going. Maybe I'll see some of you there? Yeaaa.

I know I'll definitely be at the Baltimore show if at all possible. Any maybe some folks from OCR too:
PLAY! concert in Baltimore, MD on July 18 - OverClocked ReMix Forums

Since I never come in this forum, I didn't know about the Baltimore concert until I saw it in the Sun today. After some deliberation, I bought myself a ticket; I never go to concerts, but this is one I'd really like to see. Hopefully my train isn't late on Friday, otherwise I'll be late to the concert.

I've never been to the Meyerhoff; is there any fast food around there, so I can duck in and get supper before the show?

Yes, there's food only a block or two away. Google Maps is your friend. :)

And I'll be wearing my black Overclocked ReMix shirt. Hope to see you guys there. Come up and say hi! :3:

Awesome, see yous at the show then maybe. Maybe I'll wear my OLDK shirt, but probably not.

I'm wearing a blue plaid shirt and gray pants, since I'm coming from work. I hope to get there around 6:30-7 so I can check out whatever they have set up.

Clowns! Next time a big ass VG concert comes to town we need to get together and buy tickets and make it a meet.

I won't be gracing you guys with my presence tonight so you'll have to tell me how it is.

I took some videos of the songs I was looking forward to. I put them on YouTube... excuse the shitty camera handiwork though because I was trying to keep it concealed WHILE executing a slow fist raise. :tpg:

METAL GEAR SOLID:

YouTube Video

CHRONO TRIGGER/CHRONO CROSS:

YouTube Video

GUILD WARS:

YouTube Video

The highlight of the night: THE Super Shinobi. You can only imagine. Castlevania was fucking amazing as well.

Got photos too that I'd put in my CJ or something, but I haven't been maintaining it lately. ;_;