Distant Worlds: music from FINAL FANTASY Tickets

The conductor (Arnie Roth) and the orchestra were amazing. The UCLA chorus group perfectly complimented the music and the use of the house organ for Dancing Mad was unbelievable. I caught myself tearing on a couple of the pieces performed...nostalgic reminders of my younger days playing Final Fantasy I, VI, and VII. And the Kefka cosplayer was a nice touch. A must see if you are a Final Fantasy fan. And we were treated to an amazing surprise when Nobuo Uematsu-san and Hironobu Sakaguchi-san both showed up and sat in the audience.

Amazing! I loved the use of the UCLA Choral and the Royce Hall organ.

Unbelievably spectacular. I wish everyone I knew were there. I am looking forward to another concert with new or even the same play list. Even so, It'd be just as breath taking.

Dancing Mad. Need I say more? I cried, it was beautiful. Definitly plan on going again. Glad I got to meet Nobuo and Sakaguchi-San :)

I am a classical music fan more than anything. I have little game reference, only having played a few of the Final Fantasy games. The reference is not necessary to appreciate the genius behind the music. The complexity grace and emotion carried in every piece could not bettered were Mozart alive. Uematsu-san is one of the greatest composers there has been and Arnie Roth leads a flawless performance. A duet between Uematsu and Roth demonstrated why Roth is the man in front of the orchestra. His violin comes alive and sings such a soulful song under his touch, It is almost worth the trip to hear this alone. By the end of the concert, It was not a simple show that one has seen, but an enlightening experience that has been had.

Being a long time fan of Final Fantasy and Nobuo Uematsu's compositions especially, this was a must see event. There were many stellar arrangements of favorite pieces like Theme of Love, Man with the Machine Gun, Terra's Theme, and Dancing Mad. The evening ended with an excellent encore of One Winged Angel. Completing the amazing night were the guests: in the audience were several members of Square Enix Japan and US, the creator of Final Fantasy Hironobu Sakaguchi, and Nobuo Uematsu himself. Totally unexpected. He even got up on stage and did a couple of numbers with the orchestra! My one suggestion where they could improve is the visuals projected on the screen. Working with footage from the 90's and early 2000's is definitely tricky, but I feel like the clip selection and editing could have been a bit better. Nevertheless, this is a minor quibble. All in all, a fantastic experience.

LOVED the MUSIC. Got to see Nobuo Uetmasu and Hironobu Sakaguchi. Arnie Roth, the conductor, has got to be one of the best humorous conductor-- loved the atmosphere. MUST GO SEE if you're a FF FAN! I've finally gone after 14 years of loving this game. They show stills of each game as they perform the orchestra.

It's my 6th time attending Distant World Final Fantasy Concert. DW plays different pieces in each concert. Highly recommend this concert to everyone!

Being able to listen to these songs played live was amazing. The guests were a pleasant surprise, meeting and chatting, even for a few minutes, with Uematsu was a real treat. The selection of songs was good, nothing that should have or should not have been played in favor of anything else. A good show, altogether.

It was beautiful. The concert was amazing.Nobuo Uematsu was quite funny.

I've always liked the music of Final Fantasy and was really impressed when Distant Worlds released their CDs of very well-adapted orchestral versions of the songs. It was enough for me to drag my wife, who had never played a single FF game, to see Distant Worlds at the UCLA Royce Hall; even she thought it was amazing! If you like going to orchestra / choral concerts, you won't be let down; if you are like me and played a large handful of the 14 FF titles around today, the music - paired with a nice projected video montage for each song - will make for one of the greatest nostalgic evenings of your life.

This was my first time going. The music, videos and crowd energy was amazing. Highly recommended.

All I can say is that..... everyone in this universe should watch it.... it's just bombastic!!!!!

I waited 5 years for this to come to LA, and it was totally worth the wait!

What more could be said, FF in concert :) It was incredible

Nobuo Uematsu is in a small handfull of contemporary composers that could be argued as being the greatest of our time. Unfortunately, John Williams will probably have more support as he has the backing of Hollywood and the like- but as any fan of the Final Fantasy series knows, Nobuo is up there with him, regardless of how many are familiar with his music. I attended both Friday and Saturday nights, and the shows were different enough to make it worth going both nights. Several select tracks were performed both nights, but obviously the good ones worth seeing twice. The only negative comment I might have is that Arnie Roth, the conductor, paused too many times to have the orchestra stand, bow, and wait for applause. And much of his commentary was kind of pointless- it would have been much better to just let the orchestra play the music with minimum intermission. Friday he seriously paused after every other song to have the orchestra stand and bow. Saturday he sometimes let 3 songs go, or two really long ones before doing so. But anyway, if you're a fan of the video games, then obviously you know what you're getting. It was great to hear the full orchestra as opposed to the MIDI I've heard in the past. And on the screen, there were a couple times where they had gameplay video at opportune moments to catch a few big laughs from the audience (About 3/4 of the time it was CG or characters wandering the worlds).

This was my third time seeing Mr. Roth and Uematsu-san perform music from Final Fantasy. Each time has been a joy. I took my children (9,7) and they had a wonderful time as well. The new arrangements from FF13 and FF14 hold up well next to the older music, but the highlights remain "Aerith" and "One-Winged Angel."

My son recommended this concert as he is a huge fan of Final Fantasy. He lives in Seattle and my husband, daughter and I drove from Iowa to visit him. We took a side trip to Vancouver so that we could see this show. It was wonderful and we enjoyed ourselves very much in spite of the fact that only my son has played the games. the length was just right, neither too long or too short. The symphony did a great job!

This concert was utterly amazing. The music brought tears to my eyes and will do so to any true Final Fantasy fan! Seeing the great Nobuo Uematsu in person was great, he sat and watched the concert in the audience with everyone else!! He came up on stage to perform one song, sadly, not Zanarkand...I only wish I had VIP tickets so I could have attended the meet and greet, where many got their prized CDs autographed. The only reason I don't give the concert a perfect score is because there was no music from Final Fantasy XII, which I love and has phenomenal music, otherwise it was perfect, I wish it wouldn't have ended, but kept going all night long!!

The reason for which I saw the concert was to hear the beloved music of my childhood performed live- and in this respect the show was OUTSTANDING- beautifully played pieces and talented performers. However, the beauty of the evening was marred a bit by the, well, quirkiness, of those attending the show. It certainly didn't feel professional, and perhaps I should not have expected the audience to behave as such, but I found the strangeness of the people around me took away from my enjoyment of the music. I also feel that the big screen cut scenes could have been so much more effective than they were. The games are full of beautiful cut scenes and such, but the music was often paired with random battle scenes. The pairing of audio and video was absent, as video didn't much even relate to the emotion of the music being played. Overall I truly truly enjoyed the music, which is the essence of the concert, but other distractors in the form of oddball audience members and average video lowered my enjoyment of the show a bit.