I'm in for drinks and whatnot, but

a) where do we meet to be able to identify fellow STCers?

b) why do you have to be a six figure opera goer to dress beyond shorts and t-shirt?  I'm a student too, but these concerts don't happen very often, and considering i'm traveling to see it, I'm going to be relatively dressed up for the occasion (no tie, I don't think)

-Seph

"For this year, even though the VIP for Chicago has sold out, I too am surprised there are still lots of regular seats left...  Maybe some people now have a "been there done that" feeling, even though it's going to be completely different songs here than all FF..."

That's just about how I feel.  I was at Dear Friends and loved it . . . but I just don't have the same enthusiasm for this one.

Anyone care to volunteer to make a big ol' sign for after the show?  Either that or we can all just run around screaming our screennames at the top of our lungs.

Has anyone been to the Rosemont Theatre before?  From the look of the building on their website here, we might be able to meet at one of the building's front pillars (the middle column would probably be best).

Assuming this is what the building looks like, why don't we try to gather outside at that middle pillar at the intermission.  If that doesn't work out (they won't let us outside; the intermission features Uematsu dancing a jig on stage so obviously none of us leave; etc!), we could meet there afterwords.  The only way THAT won't work is if those pillars don't actually exist.

Any better suggestions?

I met Uematsu tonight and hung out at the Virgin afterward. Was anyone here there for the event? Angela Aki isn't a great singer, but she is so. F'n. Hot.

Pretty sure they still exist, but it might be really crowded out there after the show.  I don't know about intermission, but I'll try to be out there by the end.  Failing that, I sent Zane my cell phone number by email, so hopefully he got that.

I'm off for Chicago!

Went to the Angela Aki in-store performance at the Tower Records.
Barely found any place to park in time, and got over there like 15 minutes before 7, so I was at the end of the outdoor line... 

On the 2nd level balcony near the front of the line, there was a few people (trio?) performing 'street musician' versions of a few FF songs, which was kinda cool.  Some folks had camcorders with them outside, so there's probably some video clips of them which might get uploaded to youtube or someplace similar.

Once we got inside, Angela promptly sang and performed 2 songs with just a keyboard and microphone, so it was just vocal & piano versions.   "Kiss Me Goodbye" (in English), then a few moments of introducing herself, then a song called "This Love" (in Japanese) which she said gets released in Japan next week.

Being I don't usually follow the jpop scene (or game OP/ED theme song singers), this was the first time I had listened to any of her songs, but yeah they sounded fine and she played well.

Then came the waiting in line for the signing.

Jason (JMP) was announcing that they brought a handful of the "More Friends" CD and some of Angela's Imports if anyone wanted to purchase those, but it must have only been a handful since I didn't see any display sales rack while making my way through the store.  No exclusive merchandise though, and anyone could have imported those on their own already.

The assembly line kept rolling, and finally I got up to the table, having brought the Tour de Japon DVD and Black Mages Live DVD to get signed.   
Nobuo looked visibly surprised / shocked to see these items, and he elbowed Angela Aki and made a comment to her in Japanese while signing them.

All in all a very good hour 
Now for the main concert tonight!

f---ing AWESOME!!
The Play concert really kicked ass, there were all kinds of new arrangements!

MUCH more lively and energetic than Dear Friends was, no doubt.
Anyone who doesn't have tickets for any of the other shows better get one!

Koji Kondo was on stage playing a special piano solo, from the New SMB game!
The Mario Bros suite was a new arrangement not found on BigBandLive.

Shenmue segment was great, Battlefield 1942 I hadn't heard prior but that turned out great too, partially because of that awesome percussionist they brought in for accompanyment.

Koshiro's new arrangement of Sonic was fantastic, lots of great tunes from Sonic 1!
Metal Gear Solid was impressive and powerful, as expected (Angela will have heart attack!)

Hadn't heard the Elder Scrolls tunes but they turned out good too, so even the American composers there got plenty of love.

Swing de Chocobo was fun, but Kondo's Piano playing earlier kinda upstaged it, hehe!

MITSUDA!! The Chrono Trigger and Cross suite was very awesome as expected, new arrangement and quite a few song segments were included. 

Angelia Aki's 2 songs were almost underwhelming, compared to all the lively and powerful epic songs done, but some 'downtime' was needed I suppose    Oddly, she was dressed up a lot nicer Yesterday at the signing instead of here at the concert, where she just had plain t-shirt and jeans.  She was like "oops, I'm kinda underdressed..."

Yamaoka rocked out on Theme of Laura, leather pants and all, and really got the crowd fired up.

New Zelda suite arrangement, that was fantastic as well, all kinds of tunes thrown in.

the Blue Dragon video clips along with the music looked kinda like Hanjuku Hero style or something, so I must have been mislead by the Dragon Logo in thinking it was gonna be a more 'serious' game.

Sadly they didn't have a seperate Encore song lined up, so they ended up by playing One Winged Angel twice in a row, so that was weird but oh well it didn't really matter by that point 

All in all, this show DIDN'T DISAPPOINT AT ALL, and stomped all over Dear Friends.
GET SOME TICKETS for the other shows!

Odd, I kind of thought that was just her personal style - she was wearing t-shirt and jeans at the FF concert I went to in Yokohama and all the rest of the performers were in traditional Japanese formalwear or tuxes!

Glad to hear the concert was good... a whole slew of my friends from back home got to go; needless to say, I'm quite jealous!

This sounds fantastic. Stockolm is only almost two weeks away...

How was the Meet & Greet - did you shake hands with Mitsuda, Uematsu, Kondo and the others?

And which tunes are included in the Chrono suite?

And also: bring us some photos!