by Nick - 05.31.06
The folks at N-Sider attended the Play! Symphony show in Detroit and have come back with some great impressions and two nice interviews. A lot of famous video game musicians were there, including Koji Kondo of Nintendo fame.
On the walk back to the hotel, I was pretty much still in awe at what a kick-ass show I had witnessed, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what the guy had said about this being not so “stuffy,” and, to be more specific, the crowd’s reaction to the Mario medley. It really does ring true, what Uematsu wrote in the program’s notes: music is the seeds, and video games are the soil. The Play! concert isn’t just about hearing music from video games, it’s about hearing music that everyone has heard before under a different set of circumstances. The Japanese family in front of me probably played Super Mario Bros. just like I did, albeit on a Famicom instead of an NES.
Head on over to N-Sider to read about the show and check out their interviews with Yasunori Mitsuda, Composer of Chrono series and Xenogears/Xenosaga and Nobuo Uematsu, Composer of Final Fantasy. Now if only I could find a YouTube of the whole thing.
Oh my f#&@%ng god. They had Chrono Trigger on the program!
CHRONO TRIGGER!!!
Clay Handley - 05.31.06 9:32 pm
Does no one like vg music?
Clay Handley - 05.31.06 10:34 pm
OH my, this seems great, but leaves me wondering, are there copies on video anywhere?
Smashins - 06.01.06 2:53 am
I saw the Play! concert in Chicago last weekend and it was phenomenal. I’m praying someone bootlegged it or they release a CD of it.
Savory Cade - 06.01.06 9:09 am
Aww..it was right here in Detroit? If only I had known…
Mannie - 06.01.06 4:52 pm
I’d go if they came somewhere nearby like Saratoga or Albany, but I’m thinking they’re never going to do that extensive a US tour….
raindog - 06.01.06 11:07 pm
It was a great event! I really enjoyed how it was informal and there was interaction with the crowd. Although, because of the informality and other things, it seemed really unprofessional.
A few things really irked me that no one seems to discuss in their reviews of the event:
- Angela Aki wore jeans and a t-shirt on stage. There was no explanation as to why. Everyone else was in a tux. Tacky, Angela.
- I felt nickel and dimmed the whole time. I drove for hours to get to this thing and bought the more expensive tickets, $65, that weren’t any better seats than the less expensive ones. Parking was $15. Programs were $20. What a rip. Arnie Roth even started promoting the “limited” and “imported” stuff for sale in the lobby during the show. I half expected him to play a song halfway through and stop to announce that we can hear the rest of the song by purchasing a limited edition, import, collector’s CD that has two variant covers and one, and we’re not going to tell you which, has a secret bonus track.
- Akira Yamaoka was the reason I went in the first place and his “rock and roll” cliché act was god awful. The drum set wasn’t even tuned for rock. Symphony and rock are like oil and water. Please don’t mix.
- The orchestra itself had some problems. Mallets were dropped and bows repeatedly and unintentionally bumped into music stands. Let’s face it, everyone wasn’t there to hear a symphony, they wanted fan service. It was evident when the crowd cheered more for the images of game footage on screen and composers sitting in the seats than for the music. No wonder the orchestra slacked a little. I was expecting to see a professional symphony performance and didn’t get it.
The rest of the show was great. Liberi Fatali made the hair on my arms stand up and percussionist Rony Barrak stood out to me as the top performer.
Even though it wasn’t terrible, I probably wouldn’t attend Play! again.
Also, the “free” Oblivion soundtrack download from Directsong.com was a nice gift — for Windows users. Us Mac users are just SOL.
MrBlank - 06.02.06 9:43 am