Kingdom Hearts Orchestra - World Tour, March 2017

Last Saturday, I finally got round to going to see a live Orchestra performance of one of my all time favourite gaming series called Kingdom Hearts. I admit that I've had a stressful past 2 weeks of trying to sort an issue out about the event, but I didn't let it stop me from going, even if I had to go alone in the end. But I had Franklin with me int he daytime and the show was spectacular (sadly no one was allowed to record anything). But here's what happened at the Kingdom Hearts Orchestra in London!
This gaming series is in my top 5 for so many reasons whether it be the genius idea of mixing Final Fantasy characters into the Disney Universe, or the uniquely complicated plot that manages to tie into the Disney stories or just the fact that it's soundtrack to all the games is truly magnificent. And I had the pleasure of going to watch a live performance of the score from many tracks from all the games at the Westminster Central Hall.

The build up to the night has been a stressful 2 weeks following the tickets never showing up (though after a week of patience, the wildfaery ticket group got back and said I could collect em at the door). But my dumbass +1 (who will remain nameless) failed to book the day off for the event despite the fact that I gave him a month's notice to do it after asking him to come along with me since he's a fanatic like myself.
So with him letting me down, I went through over 23 other KH fans to ask them on such short notice (a week before) if any of them would like to take his place instead, to which no one was available regrettably and Franklin wasn't interested in the series either.
But he did say we could make a day out in London instead to cheer me up and do some more Pokemon Go hunting as well before I'd go to the event at 7:00pm.
But I did achieve an amazing StarTrail Photograph by staying out for 2 hours on Friday night outside Horsham! I'll be doing another one at the end of April when I return to the Isle Of Man again.
Plus I did achieve an amazing


I was also hoping to "get two birds with one stone" by popping over to the Parliament Tattoo studio near Frisbury Park (North East London). I'd contacted an artist, 2 weeks earlier about my first tattoo idea (more on that next time) and he got back to me 10 days earlier and mentioned he works Fridays and Saturdays. With him not managing to see my response saying "I'm in London on this weekend for a show in the evening, so I could do a consultation in the day", I gave it a shot and turned up the studio to learn that he was in Switzerland (reason why he didn't respond) but it wasn't a problem as I know he's interested in helping me and we can look into it over April / May!

Matt "Franklin" and I had a great day in London as we travelled back on the tube to central London because he wanted to show me London's biggest bar that his Dad took him to before, called The Porterhouse in Covent Garden. That place was amazing and huge as it's reputation and included 3 floors which could hold up loads and loads of people (especially in the sports is on). We had c couple drinks whilst sharing more plans for the year as well as our views on current plans whilst planning our day and explaining everything I'd been through to get to this particular date. I like how Copper was used to help make the structure and is an outstanding material that makes this bar iconic.

I mentioned to him that we should pop over to the Topman in Oxford Street that we went to when we were going to Winter Wonderland back in 2015, because I was interested on finding a waistcoat to wear for a future night out in London or Brighton. Which we managed to wake to all the way from the bar whilst popping into a Five Guys (which was first priority) on the way.
But we did pop into the Hartley's not far from Topman en route after I spotted a Stormtrooper statue and we went downstairs to look at the whole floor of Star Wars merchandise!

I found a good Silver Waistcoat and a nice white Egyptian Cotton shirt combo and Matt had a Navy Blue Waistcoat and white shirt combo too. We both liked our choices that we decided to buy em after all and Matt also got some new shoes eventually.
We got the Underground back together before I decided to split at Green Park so that I could go to Westminster whilst he headed for a train home at Victoria.

I cheesed it to the Hall by 7:00 and found the other fans queuing up. I got in no problem and claimed my two tickets but had no luck (obviously) of receiving a refund on the other tickets since I didn't get to bring along another +1. Oh well, £180 on two GOLD tickets to place me on the ground floor with a  good view (but surprisingly no additional perk like a goody bag or something for the value that I paid for). Next time, I'll go for standard and make sure my +1 sends me money first before I order x2 tickets (usually it's no problem and I only do it right away if it's seating just so that we're together).

I saw maybe a couple hundred fans all buzzing like me (some cosplayers too) and to get into the spirit, I expertly changed in the only male cubicle into my Heartless emblem T-Shirt so that I'd fit among the others quickly whilst doing my business ha, it was difficult.
I did however end up having a nice German couple next to me and we failed to exchange names but he was wearing a Nobody emblem T-Shirt and they were down for the week starting with this show especially. So i pointed out that they should go to the Sea-Life Aquarium not far from here as it also houses the 3 floor Namco Arcade with a bar on the bottom floor (to which they were amazed and pleased to hear about).
And we both bought the Program which contained an interview with Japanese and English translations of Yoko Shimomura (composer) and Tetsuya Nomura (director) as well as screenshots from the games!

Anyway, I was a bit down to hear on the announcement that the show forbid any photography at all and would result in being escorted off the premises, but I did snap a shot of the first opening into which is this video below - the main opening theme Hikari / Simple and Clean and the video was the opening to the latest game Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance for the 3DS (also available for PS4 on the Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue).
*Video contains spoilers from every game and is the story in a nutshell so far!*

I couldn't keep track of the following 11 tracks which many were blends per selection like one piece was Character Themes, another was World Themes plus Battle Themes and another was a mixture of the Final Boss Battles and every track had a unique display of cutscenes, opening Cinematics and muted moments that every fan in the room must recognise or have had spoiled for some ha.

I loved hearing many of my favourite tracks if not for a short moment including: Destati, Fate Of The Unknown, Organization XIII, Darkness Of The Unknown, Vector To The Heavens, Xion's Theme *sheds tear*, The Other Promise, Twilight Town, Disney Castle, Namine's Theme along with the incredible 1st track of the famous Dearly Beloved which is played in almost every title screen in the games. This time, we had a preview letter from Kairi of her training with someone in the upcoming, long delayed Kingdom Hearts III whilst watching an emotional video of time-lapses of the world featuring forests, sunsets, cities, nightlife, nature etc. It inspired and gave me ideas on more photography work for someday.

Looks like this YouTube has uploaded the tracks from the show and CD that I aim to get. Take a look if you're interested and see which blends of music you can recognise!

Terra Cosplayer - Kingdom
Hearts: Birth By Sleep

What also made this night unforgettable was having a surprise guest appearance than none other than the composer herself Yoko Shimomura who has composed for every game! She had a translator with her but we showered her, the composer for the evening and the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra and choir with thunderous applause throughout the night! I tried taking a secret picture of her when she came on stage to perform the piano for the closing song - an instrumental version of Kingdom Hearts II's opening theme Passion / Sanctuary and the video crammed in everything from all the games and the last 10 seconds were a glimpse into the KH3 world at last!
Alas my picture came out not zoomed in enough or in focus, but I'm so pleased that she turned up and it was an honour to have her perform for us all!







When the show finished at 10:30pm, my journey home took 3 hours due to the last train home from Victoria being a very crammed one due to no trains working from Three Bridges to Brighton... typical. But I got on it, ended up chatting to some guys travelling down from Leeds to Brighton and wished them the best of luck and shared some chips from my Burger King.
But a replacement Bus didn't turn up for 40 mins and me and 25 other passengers all bound for Horsham only stood and watched 9 Buses pass and head off to places that weren't our destination grr. But eventually our one turned up and I didn't get home till 1:30am ha. I was knackered but this day was so worth it, overall!

With it being Mother's Day on Sunday, Becca and I bought a bouquet of flowers for Mum as well as a  well thought out personal card, chocolates and we treated Mum and Dad to a Thai Restaurant in town! We're such good, thoughtful kids due to being spoilt ourselves and being brought up with manners haha.

I really love this gaming series and I wish more gamers / Disney fans knew about it! I'd love to attempt to write up reviews of the games starting this year (if I can keep it professional without spoiling too much)! I've played almost every but (one or two spin-off games) and I love them all and see the evolution in gameplay, story, game consoles etc which make this complicated series hard to obtain before all the Remixes came out on the PS4 (making it much easier for fans to play and watch every game now) as we wait for the long delayed KH3 to finally be released and end the Seeker Of Darkness saga! It's a remarkable Mythology of 2 Universes that have molded together to create something spectacular!
I'd definitely love to see this again since I've seen The Legend Of Zelda: Symphony Of The Goddesses with Ellie back in April 2014 and I hear it's returning to London in November (better buy tickets soon)! To any other Kingdom Hearts fans reading this, know that you are Awesome for loving such an outstanding gaming series!!!