Last night I went to the Sonic Symphony in Seattle with my parents. (None of us really have an active interest in the games, but my dad's friend from college was one of the leads on electric guitar and also one of the main arrangers.) It was really fun in the first half!!! My mother kept asking me what characters' names were, so that was fun. The image in the project is basically how the crowd reacted to character introductions. It was kind of frightening how the chao got a stronger reaction than multiple main characters. The first act was a bunch of instrumental medleys, which I really enjoyed! There were some really fun visual gags for the screen portion that the orchestra managed to get right on time. (Drowning, repeated failure to overcome obstacles, a casino area in Mania if I remember correctly, etc.) It was a great time, and there were some fun little animations that I believe were made just for the tour. The latter half, though, was not what I expected. It was a rock concert. So basically, the vocalist comes out onstage, she announces some things, and then the lyrical tracks start. I was expecting the crowd to sing along, and it was pretty manageable for the first three or so songs. Then, we got to Escape From the City. Oh goodness, could that crowd scream. I'm very happy that I remembered ear protection. Live and Learn was probably the loudest it got. Overall, it was a very fun time and I'm glad that I got to go. It was fun seeing the sense of community that the fans had with each other, talking about their favorite things about the series. There was one group of people that about three of them came together, and about two others were in the same general area as that group. Turns out, some of them knew each other from fan meetups and didn't think they would see each other ever again. It was really refreshing to see people who genuinely cared about something so much in real life. One last thing. The ACTUAL COMPOSER OF SOME OF THE SONGS was the special guest for that performance. His name is Jun Senoue, and he played the guitar on a few songs.
Characters and images belong to SEGA.
