Play!
This weekend Craig, his friend and I had the pleasure of going to see the concert Play! at the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto; we were also lucky enough to get fantastic seats.
The wood coloured blur in the front is the arm rest of my chair and the seats with the paper attached to them are the seats for the composers. Sitting closest to me was Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (composer for the Shenmue series), followed by Nobuo Uematsu (composer for the Final Fantasy Series), Jeremy Soule (composer for Oblivion), Jason Hayes (composer for World of Warcraft and Starcraft). The music was led by Arnie Roth, conductor of the Chicago Pops.
There was also a special guest musician, Rony Barrak, a world famous percussionist who is known for his impressive speed and accuracy at playing many percussive instruments, his specialty being the Darbouka (aka. goblet drum).
My only regret is that Koji Kondo was not able to make this particular concert, he composed the music for both Super Mario Bros. and the Zelda series of games.
Nintendo showed it's best as pre-show entertainment for some as several people attending the show had brought their Nintendo DS. Thus there were chat rooms and wireless games a plenty before the show and during intermission.
There were many surprises during the concert including a very spirited vocal/piano performance of "Daytona USA" by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi which left us all watching and wondering, "What the heck was that?!?". After his performance he threw 3 Sonic the Hedgehog dolls into the audience but we were too far down front to get them; he threw them at the cheaper costing seats.
After the show we got to go to the Meet and Greet which was for VIP ticket holders only. The line was fairly long but fast moving. There were only 125 VIP seats some of which weren't even filled during the concert so the line consisted of less than that.
Once at the front of the queue we got to meet and shake hands with each of the composers as well as the conductor. They were all very nice and signed all our stuff and I even got to have my picture taken with Nobuo Uematsu himself!
It was a great night and Craig was thorougly pleased. I think he will be for years and years to come. :)
The wood coloured blur in the front is the arm rest of my chair and the seats with the paper attached to them are the seats for the composers. Sitting closest to me was Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (composer for the Shenmue series), followed by Nobuo Uematsu (composer for the Final Fantasy Series), Jeremy Soule (composer for Oblivion), Jason Hayes (composer for World of Warcraft and Starcraft). The music was led by Arnie Roth, conductor of the Chicago Pops.
There was also a special guest musician, Rony Barrak, a world famous percussionist who is known for his impressive speed and accuracy at playing many percussive instruments, his specialty being the Darbouka (aka. goblet drum).
My only regret is that Koji Kondo was not able to make this particular concert, he composed the music for both Super Mario Bros. and the Zelda series of games.
Nintendo showed it's best as pre-show entertainment for some as several people attending the show had brought their Nintendo DS. Thus there were chat rooms and wireless games a plenty before the show and during intermission.
There were many surprises during the concert including a very spirited vocal/piano performance of "Daytona USA" by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi which left us all watching and wondering, "What the heck was that?!?". After his performance he threw 3 Sonic the Hedgehog dolls into the audience but we were too far down front to get them; he threw them at the cheaper costing seats.
After the show we got to go to the Meet and Greet which was for VIP ticket holders only. The line was fairly long but fast moving. There were only 125 VIP seats some of which weren't even filled during the concert so the line consisted of less than that.
Once at the front of the queue we got to meet and shake hands with each of the composers as well as the conductor. They were all very nice and signed all our stuff and I even got to have my picture taken with Nobuo Uematsu himself!
It was a great night and Craig was thorougly pleased. I think he will be for years and years to come. :)