[News] Symphonic Fantasies Concert to Celebrate Music of Square Enix

Feeling like an idiot here, I didn't realize this was gonna be such a big thing, with those composers attending etc. And in Cologne! That's less than 1.5 hours from where I live, so I'm gonna try and book tickets!
Is there going to be a GamingForce fans meetup?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Just booked two tickets for the concert. I'm gonna make it a day-trip, do some shopping during the day, and then go to the concert. Hopefully by the time the concert gets closer, we can arrange some time/place to meet. I'd love to be able to put faces to names of people I've seen at this message board for so long.
Hee, so excited about this. I honestly never thought I'd get to see these composers in real life. That makes me at least as excited as the concert itself.

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Put me on the list for before the concert. I'll be driving home to the Netherlands the same evening still.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I just got home from Cologne a few minutes ago. The concert was simply stunning. I had tears in my eyes at times, especially with the Mana songs; experimental, yes, but it all completely caught the atmosphere, the feel of the game. I loved how many 'uncommon' instruments were used, and the originality of it all. But what really caught my attention was the fact that the audience was so *silent* during the performances. Clearly, this was a devoted fan audience. During the first half I didn't hear so much as a cough, during the second half a few behind me, but I've never before been to a concert where the audience behaved so well. Obviously, nobody wanted to miss anything!
I'm also still on a high from meeting the composers. I didn't think I'd get the ever see these people in real life, let alone at a concert in their honor, and get their autographs!

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I'm about 1.5 hours by car from Cologne, but in the weekends, that's manageable by car (traffic is murder during working days, which is why I opted for Cologne instead of Oberhausen, although I now wish I'd gone to both!). It was more than worth the drive. I loved each and every single song they performed, but was definitely most pleasantly surprised with Secret of Mana. And the guy on that special drum thing was just amazing (I'm doped on up three migraine painkillers, I cannot for the life of me remember what that instrument was called, haha.).
As much as I adored the concert (*please* let there be a CD release), I think what really warmed my heart was the reception these composers and everybody else involved with the concert got from the audience, and the request for an encore; they were treated almost like pop stars, heh!
Concerts like these should be done more often; it's the perfect way to get a younger audience into the concert halls.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I also took a bunch of pictures and videos at the venue, but they're not really that interesting. Only posted a few pics here. Symphonic Fantasies pictures by dallista - Photobucket
Hamu-Sumo, I think I saw you and Teioh very briefly yesterday, right? I arrived at Cologne pretty late, past 4 pm, and happened to catch you guys sitting at the MacDo, but by the time I'd parked the car and gotten back there, you were gone, and I still wanted to do some shopping, so figured I might as well just say hi at the Philharmonie. I arrived there around 5.45 pm, I think, and ended up with maybe 30/40 people ahead of me in the queue, so that was nice. :-) Anyway, I just happened to catch you standing at the queue when I was standing on the stairs. You and especially Teioh will have to forgive me if I came across as overly hyper; I was a bit high on migraine painkillers (which thankfully did their job and kicked the pain about five minutes before the concert started!).

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Yeah, the people in the audience were so well behaved! I only heard a few coughs somewhere behind me after the break, but only a couple. I've been to enough concerts to know this was really special in that regard.

There's just no way everybody in the queue could've gotten autographs; there were way too many people. It did seem to me as if people got more than one item per composer autographed; if so, maybe they should have had a restriction placed on that to get more people through the line.

I'm definitely gonna keep a closer eye on news about such events; if there's another concert next year in the Nordrhein-Westfalen area, I'm so there!


BTW Maybe a stupid question, but is there a list somewhere of all the songs played in each suite? I'm pretty sure I failed to recognize one or two bits, particularly in the Mana suite.

FELIPE NO

The music was great, but the moderator was a complete... ahem, well, you catch my drift. I was glad I only understood about 90 % of what he said (6 years of high school German and shopping in Germany once every couple of weeks does not a German language expert make), because that was far more than enough to feel utterly embarrassed. I'm at a concert, you twat, not a panto. Ugh.
And the Rooth instead of Roth thing was just too weird. I almost started to believe maybe it *was* really pronounced as Rooth. Really glad to read the MC had it wrong, but really, couldn't they have gotten their facts straight?!

How ya doing, buddy?