Did you happen to tune in to the PIANO OPERA FINAL FANTASY IV/V/VI USTREAM interview with Nobuo Uematsu and pianist Hiroyuki Nakayama about the album tonight? I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t, as I only found out about it today myself, but about 450 fans tuned into the Famitsu-exclusive stream to hear the interview along with samples from the album.
We have a lot of info for you courtesy of Justin Pfeiffer who I dragged in to listen on OSV’s behalf. Hit the jump for details! (more…)
I guess the SQ Party LEVEL1 event was a success. I tuned in with 3,000 others to watch the performance, although we also had a correspondent there who will be providing impressions soon. It looks like Square Enix is following-up the event on October 28 with SQ Party LEVEL2 -NieR NighT-, which will apparently be dedicated to the recent NieR Tribute Album -echo- with both Go-qualia and world’s end girlfriend (and more) in attendance.
The performance will take place at the same venue, 2.5D, and will be streamed on the venue’s Ustream channel. It will take place on a Friday this time, and has been moved back thirty minutes to 20:30 (4:30 AM PST and 7:30 AM EST). Interestingly, the price has also gone up from 1,500 Yen to 2,000 Yen if you want to go in person! While I’m a fan of the SQ series, I’m definitely a much bigger fan of NieR, so I’m excited to check this out later this month.
Did you tune into the LEVEL1 concert, and will you be tuning in this time? Have any requests for songs to be performed?
Yes, we’ve seen lots of events and concerts streamed on Ustream over the last couple of years, but never a Square Enix event. Square Enix is putting on an SQ series-themed concert titled SQ Party LEVEL1 on Thursday, September 29 at the 2.5D venue in Japan, and they’ll be streaming it live on Ustream for fans who can’t attend.
Just what will be performed we’re not sure, but a couple of my favorite SQ series arrangers, including RE:NDZ and SEXY SYNTHESIZER will be present along with several others. The concert takes place at 20:00 in Tokyo, so be prepared to wake up early to tune in at 4:00 AM PST or 7:00 AM EST to check it out. The 2.5D venue Ustream channel can be viewed here.
Are you interested in this event, and will you be tuning in on Thursday morning?
[Special thanks to Kai Ohler for translating some of the concert details]
[via Destructoid]
[Update: In consideration of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, the concert will no longer be broadcast live, but will instead be aired on Sakamoto’s USTREAM channel at a later date. Check the noisycroak website for more details]
By now, we’d certainly hope you know who Hideki Sakamoto is. If you somehow missed our coverage of his work, he’s the incredibly talented composer and head of noisycroak with titles like the echochrome series, the Yakuza series, and 100 Million Ton no Bara Bara under his belt, among many others. As it turns out, he’ll be traveling to St. Petersburg, Russia, on March 30, 2011 to conduct the St. Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his music from echochrome and No Heroes Allowed!.
Wait, upset that you won’t happen to be in St. Petersburg, Russia on that day? Sakamoto has you covered, as the concert will be broadcast live on Ustream for fans to enjoy. Sakamoto did this recently with the recording sessions for the amazing echochrome ii soundtrack, and it’s good to see him continuing this trend with this concert. His official website not only lists all the tracks being performed, but lists the stream times for nearly every time zone around the world.
We’re all in for a rare treat! Let us know what you think of the set list and the fact that this is being streamed live to fans around the world.
It’s time for another Professor Sakamoto update. This time, the good professor shows off his writing skills at about the 20:20 mark (I highly recommend checking this out, and this guy is really a wizard at picking things up on the first listen). He bangs out the entire song in writing in a matter of minutes. There’s also a version of “Red Wings” from Final Fantasy IV at the 11:20 mark that you should check out.
In another video titled gamemusic_1 (all of his recent videos have had rather strange titles, with the video above being titled drmario_losstime, for example), he performs an excellent rendition of “Wings of Time” (11-minute mark) and a touching version of “Corridors of Time” from Chrono Trigger at 1:56:00 among numerous other songs.
Has anyone other than me been keeping up with this guy’s broadcasts? Are you as impressed as I am by his level of skill?
Remember that Professor Sakamoto guy we posted about a few months back? He’s apparently been busily recording new episodes for your enjoyment on Ustream. His installment from 09/26/10 has some hidden gems contained within if you’re willing to seek them out. In addition to some great RPG themes, there are also scattered pieces throughout that are quite amazing, although I can’t place them all.
You’ll definitely want to check out Actraiser at 45:30 and the opening from the original Wild ARMs (complete with whistling) at 56:20, which is immediately followed by “Suteki da Ne” from Final Fantasy X. There’s also a lengthy Dragon Quest medley at around the 78 minute mark, and a stunning rendition of the overture from Romancing SaGa at 88:17.
I hope somebody out there can dig through the rest of this and pick up on some of the other themes performed. I’m really impressed with this guy (you’ll notice how he picks up on the melodies from just listening to the source tracks and singing them back to himself at various points), so we’ll definitely be keeping an eye on his future shows and letting you know what to look out for!
Sabao is a game arrangement artist from Japan who has started to make quite a name for himself now through his weekly live streams of game music performances ranging from 1 to 3 hours of nothing but his own arrangements performed live on his 2 synths. Some of these songs are recorded and put on his Ustream so you can check them out even if you miss the live show. In past broadcasts we’ve heard music from games such as Mother, Final Fantasy IV, Dr. Mario, Spartan-X, Gradius and Contra.
Check out Sabao’s Ustream for live and recorded broadcasts and his personal website Mackerel Sky
[Thanks Nitouhei!]
