Oh, right. There was music, too.

Emotional. Seriously, a lot of those games were a major part of my childhood, and hearing this beautiful music brought waves of nostalgia rushing back. The video they played over the music really added to that. DAMN THAT RAINE AND LAGUNA SCENE! I'm not the kind of person to cry, but I came kinda close to breaking down from tears of joy. I need to wash this handkerchief...

I bought the DVD of the Tokyo concert after the performance. I just watched it today. It was still good, and some of the songs even sounded better than they did live, but the recording was missing one key thing: audience reactions. Hearing the people around you react to the music and visuals really makes the live experience worth it. People let out some short laughter as the cross-dressing scene popped up during the performance of "Main Theme of FFVII." This laughter was in unison with many others, myself included. We all had the same experience playing through this game, and we all share these memories together, despite most of us all being perfect strangers. That's really cool, kinda heartwarming in a way. It adds to that "emotional" thing I was talking about earlier. The same thing happened during the Chocobo medley. The minute that FFXIII scenes with Sazh and his little afro-inhabiting Chocobo buddy went on screen, the audience reacted greatly to that. A big smile spread across my face, and I'm sure that smile was shared by hundreds sitting around me.

Oh, and there was that joke the conductor made about FFXIV not being very good. Now, this concert is obviously for Final Fantasy nerds, but the music can be appreciated by everyone. That FFXIV joke was for the fans, though, 'cause we know that game, uh, didn't go so well for Square-Enix. So that was pretty funny!

For some reason I found the "Dancing Mad" segment hilarious. It's so weird to have a section dedicated to celebrating a villain: Kefka. The end of the video was literally Kefka beating the crap out of Terra in some Dissidia footage. I found that highly amusing, and I don't even like Kefka that much.

The concert "ended" with "Terra's Theme", and during the second half of the song, we watched three magitek armors walking through the snow...and the credits for the concert appeared on screen. It credited the conductor, the composers, and all that jazz. It was a really nice touch, and really solidified this as a video game concert. And after that, endless applause. Really! The applause went on forever. It was great!

Of course, it still wasn't over. The music program had one glaringly obvious omission, and everyone knew what the encore would be. The conductor knew we knew. They played One Winged Angel. Yeah, sure, whatever. The song's overdone, I prefer Liberi Fatali (which they started with, and you don't start the show with a show stopper!), but it still was a nice treat to the fans that appreciate it.

It's unfortunate that Uematsu wasn't there himself. I wonder if he hates Houston. :P Hopefully they come to Dallas next year. Not to say that I didn't enjoy my stay in Houston (thanks to Caitlin and her family!), but a shorter drive wouldn't be bad. I definitely wanna go again.