Saturday night, my wife and I went to see Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and watched the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra perform a 2-hour program (that went over by a half hour) of favorites from the Final Fantasy series.

The performance was tremendous -- not only did the orchestra play, but the production included a projection screen in which cut-scenes from the games were shown during the performance.  We even got a sneak-peak at Final Fantasy XIV (which was the trailer shown at E3), but what was most interesting was the reveal that Nobuo Uemats, the primary composer for the Final Fantasy series, would be composing the entirety of Final Fantasy XIV's score!  Additionally, we were treated with a video from Nobuo-san where he asked how we were enjoying the show, and then proceeded to show off his convertible car. Oh, what hijinks!

But onto the performance!  Two of my favorite pieces were from Final Fantasy VI (my personal favorite in the series), "Opera 'Maria and Draco,'" and "Terra's Theme."  The set was heavy on Final Fantasy VIII, one which I never played, but there were two stand out pieces from that game, "Man with the Machine Gun" and "Liberi Fatali."  The medley of the first three games brought back a lot of gaming memories, too, and the production premiered the first part of the Final Fantasy "Victory Theme."  The program also included the Chocobo theme twice, once as the original and then again as a swing-influenced piece, both of which my wife enjoyed immensely.  Finally, a surprise encore of Final Fantasy VII's "One-Winged Angel" was the perfect way to end the show.

For anyone who enjoys the Final Fantasy series, I recommend trying to make it out to one of these shows.  There are only two US performances left, one in Seattle and then a final performance in San Francisco.  Youtube has some bootlegs uploaded, if you'd like to hear a sample, but nothing beats being there in person.