10th Oct 2009
Distant Worlds - music from Final Fantasy
2 nights ago Wendy and I went to the Orpheum Theatre to watch this Final Fantasy ochestral performance. It’s my first time at the Orpheum Theatre, it was fairly grand and nicely decorated, just kind of tiny. There were a lot of audiences, which made it looked even smaller. I guess that was because the place was built hundred years ago and maybe due to the small number of citizens back then they didn’t need too big of a concert hall. However, the acoustic was very good, I’m sure lots of thoughts were put into designing this hall, I could see panels and stuff on the sides and ceiling that were used for directing the sound waves.
As a huge FF fan I was stoked to listen to the songs. Actually I didn’t really have high hopes on the Vancouver Symphony Ochestra since I think I’ve heard them before and they sucked. However, with total surprise, they were really good. I was able to tell it easily. That was just for the ochestra itself though, the choir sucked a lot. I think they were the “UBC Opera Ensembles”, didn’t look like students though. Not only they were out of tune, but the voice quality were just not up there. Lack of bass, messy cutoffs, weak voice…everything of it sucked. That was actually apparent even from the first song they played - Liberi Fatali. Choir was pretty much the most prominent part of the song and they just totally wrecked it. I felt shame on them that they ruined the great performance from the ochestra.
Anyway, I must say again the VSO was good, especially the harpist, pianist, and the people that played the wind instruments - they were flawless! Also what impressed me was the lady that sung Distant Worlds song from FFXIII. I wasn’t sure if she was part of VSO or was a guest singer, I better find that out. They played a LOT of songs, way more than I have expected, and they’ve also paired each song up with nice footages from the actual FF games - from FFIV all the way to FFXI. A few of my favorites that they played were, the Chocobo theme (remixed/swing version), Liberi Fatali, FFVII Theme (premiered in Canada!), To Zanarkan, Bombing Mission (FFVII), Terra’s Theme (FFVI) - even though I haven’t played FFVI I recognized this song so much as I instantly felt in love with it when I listened to the sound track from a CD, One Winged Angel (FFVII).
Overall it was a great performance, and I really liked the footage they showed on the huge projector screen - brought back so many memories of the good times when I played all the FF series years back.
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