A Sequel Means More

I wanted to blog about this some months ago, but instead I masked it with a much more politely vague post about what makes for a good concert. However, recent details of the ‘Distant Worlds II: More Music from Final Fantasy’ concert have surfaced and all but changed my viewpoint on staying polite about it.

What I speak of is that a few months ago, I went to the Wolftrap theatre for a live performance of Final Fantasy music, entitled Distant Worlds II: More Music From Final Fantasy, orchestrated by Nobuo Uematsu and conducted by Arnie Roth. Needless to say, it was an incredible concert. But that’s no surprise, I knew it would be incredible. I went to the first Distant Worlds concert in March ’08 at the Chicago Rosemont Theatre. However, there was one clear difference between Distant Worlds I and Distant Worlds II. 

At the first concert, they couldn’t have done a better job. They gave equal treatment to the entire series, playing music from Final Fantasy I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, and even the black sheep XI. Each title got at least one song, even if I, II and III were lumped into a medley. Seeing Liberi Fatali, To Zanarkand, and One Winged Angel performed live, there’s really nothing else like it, and I highly recommend everyone go to a symphonic video game concert of any kind at some point in their lives.

My complaint in question was that Distant Worlds II, advertised as a sequel to the first concert, was hardly a sequel at all. This new concert was just a rehash of 90% of the original concert, and only added a mere five new songs had been added. Now, as disappointed as I was that only five new songs were present, I was actually angry to find out that a total of 11 songs were actually added to the concert lineup, but they left six of them out. I don’t know about anyone else, but I really would have killed to here Dancing Mad, or the English premier of Suteki Da Ne performed live. And one, elusive song, Kiss Me Goodbye isn’t even yet available in .mp3 format, so I can’t even hear a decent quality of that song as only the low quality version of it on youtube. On top of that, I found out it was like this at every concert other than Stockholm. Stockholm is the only place that all 11 new songs were played. I was also disheartened to find out that special guest Susan Calloway was supposed to be there to perform the vocal themes of Final Fantasy IX, X, XI and XII. Though I’m more understanding on that issue considering there could have been scheduling conflicts.

As enjoyable as the concert still was, this news was very unsettling for quite some time considering I’m a huge fan of not only the series itself, but the music of the series in particular, and I felt I was cheated out of a concert. Instead of Distant World II, I got Distant Worlds 1.3, I found out recently that they’re “for the first time ever” performing all of these songs at the Chicago Rosemont theatre in the coming months. In addition to that, there have been three new songs have been added to the lineup recently, and another premier on its way in the coming months. That will make four new songs that I will have now missed out on because they weren’t a part of the concert I originally paid for.

My question is this. Why? Why is it that the good people of Stockholm are treated to the concert that we all deserve, a properly constructed sequel with eleven new songs added to the lineup, but everyone else only gets some of it? If you ask me, it’s a poor marketing strategy. This isn’t James Cameron’s Avatar, where if we want the extra 18 minutes of bonus footage, we just rebuy the collector’s edition at our local retail store. This is an orchestra. We can’t just shell out between $50 and $150 bucks, not to mention travel all around the country, nay, all around the world to different venues just to see a few additional songs. All this does is make the majority of the fanbase miss out on the makings of a potentially great addition to the franchise. Even though the orchestra was obviously stellar, I expect a little more out of a sequel than just the original title with a little extra bonus content.

A Note on Comedy

So last night I went to see Joan Rivers perform at Hard Rock Live in City Walk of Universal Studios. I wasn't fully aware of this, but Joan Rivers is one of those comediennes that doesn't particularly give a shit about political correctness, to say the least. Pardon the language, but it's what Joan would want.

Either way, Joan Rivers is 76 years old now and has been a comedienne for most of her life, and as far as I know she's never been one for censorship. But what I find so great about her IS her refusal to do so. She opened the show with a Polish joke which turned a few heads in the audience, and she responded in saying she'll be covering every age, race, and sex group tonight, so everyone's going to be crying before the night is done.

Although some people would think these kinds of jokes are simply not funny and should never be manipulated as such, I disagree. Maybe I'm evil for laughing at jokes about Helen Keller, but what I find so great about Joan is that she believes in finding humor in anything. Of course there were a few jokes that I didn't find funny, and then there were others that I laughed at nervously as I felt the karma cloud rearing it's thunderclap above my head. But if not for the few jokes that I felt she went to far, the evening may not have been as entertaining.

The ideal in Joan Rivers comedy is that anything can be laughed at. Rivers demonstrated this aspect herself as she casually joked about her husband's suicide, something which devastated her twenty years ago. But Joan understands that comedy can be a healing process, and that although some things may take longer than others before they're acceptable to discuss as anything other than tragic, in time laughter can be the best medicine for any wound in the human soul.

Ultimately, if you're easily offended, please do yourself a favor and never listen to Joan Rivers' stand up. Despite being a sweet, charitable entertainer, last night's act alone insulted the Polish, Jewish, Homosexual, Elderly, Young, Overweight, and many others alongside individuals such as Barbara Streisand, Helen Keller, Anne Frank, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, and Michael Jackson. But if you're open minded, and understand that every human being is insult-able, Joan Rivers makes for a comic act like none other. Also, I believe it's easy enough to understand than most if not all of her comedy doesn't represent her beliefs on people anyway. Considering she said she hates twitter, yet I'm following her daily tweets, and she hates charity, despite being a tremendous supporter of God's Love We Deliver, and acquiring over $500,000 for said charity.

Rivers said it best at the end of the night though. During a conversation with Cher and Kathy Griffith, Cher was asked when she plans to retire. And Cher responded, sharing the same belief as Rivers, that she is and always will be a performer. She is here to perform, and that's just what she does, is doing, and always will do.