REVIEW: Distant Worlds: Music From Final Fantasy, Singapore 2016

Now I will be resurrecting this blog purely for any concert reviews and stuff. So Now it's been a while since I last used this. So this is it, Final Fantasy Distant Worlds in Singapore 2016.

Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy Concert Ad

Like the last show which I watched in 2008, the concert was masterminded by maestro Mr Arnie Roth. Making a return is the renamed Metropolitan Festival Orchestra from the SG Festival Orchestra. Most of the music was composed by the legendary Nobuo Uematsu with some of the newer titles by others too. The repertoire is a lot bigger, and a lot more difficult.

If many of you were here today, you were in for an absolute treat. For one, we had Rikki, the original lead vocalist for the Beautiful 'Suteki Da Ne' from Final Fantasy X. The Orchestra and Arnie Roth debuted and delivered the very first concert premier of Apocalypse Noctis, one of the Soundtracks from the newest instalment of Final Fantasy XV.

You can't have a really good Final Fantasy Concert without the featuring some of the most famous games FF 6 to 10. All of which were delivered including Prologue: Ahead on Our Way, Terra's Theme, Zanarkand, Locke, Celes Chere, Kefka...etc.

All goodness aside, the orchestra sounded they are having a little trouble with the difficulty and scale of the repertoire for the evening. Though good, they are not as tight this time round'. I was with Clarence Lim from LaSalle and we both can feel the lag-ness during some of the offbeat syncopations which were quite evident. Judging from the scale of the repertoire which is not easy at all by any means, I could forgive most of it. However you're still paying like nearly 100 bucks and above for the tickets in there.

The Chorale by the MFO is perhaps the solid bunch though. Small group in respect to the orchestra but their clarity and diction is clearly articulated. So props go to them for providing the angelic support that some of the pieces call for!

In all, less tight than the last show and a lot more expensive. But the lineup, frankly speaking for the evening, was pretty much spot on!

Conducted by Mr Arnie Roth, along with the Metropolitan Festival Orchestra

Looking forward to more of these shows but next time round' I wanna try gunning for the piano spot. Reason I said this is because of the imperfections that came from the concert, quite a lot came from the piano and it wouldn't really do justice to the impressive repertoire. I understand it takes quite a lot of nerves to hold it all together, but for something of that size and skill, this evening's pianist somehow pulled it off well alright. For this scale of project you need someone who likes the stage and can handle a huge 5000-6000 strong crowd and I reckon I can easily handle this kind of pressure.

That said, so long as the audience enjoyed the concert despite any of the flaws, then it's a good sign.
8.1 / 10

That's all for this review.

Commander MusicHaven out!
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MusicHaven (LTCL, LRSM for Piano Recitals)