There and Back again – A novel by Me.

I knew it would be stressfull, those last days before the concert. I didn’t, however, know that I’d feel as nervous as I did. Cosplay looks easy peasy to onlookers I bet. But dear gawd are you nervous those last minutes before you put on your costume, wig and accessories. “Will it tear?” What if it looks weird?” “What if I can’t fix my hair correctly under my wig?” I went thru hell during this phase, something I know I am not alone on doing. I found myself shaking as I and Pauliina went to shop some stuff to cool down before the concert… But then as 3pm came closer and it was time to headback to ‘home’ and get propely changed… I fret.
Ofcourse, knowing all I would do was to sit down at a concert instead of walking around for hours and hours at some convention didn’t help at all. After all I also knew I’d get to meet mr Uematsu himself and as a cosplayer I feel it’s my duty to do the best I can. 

After meeting up with Henrik, having the Dinner from Hell, we finally managed to get ourselves to the Concert House at Hötorget in Stockholm. Dare is say we were there 8pm and the concert actually was supposed to start 8pm? Dare I mention the word STRESS upon hearing the 3 signals that state that the concert is about to start as we tried to get somewhere in the ‘tourgoods’ que? We made haste. And I thought that was the last I’d see of the CD and Tshirt.   

After a bit of confusion we managed to get ourselves into our row at the parket. I was really glad when I noticed it was such a neat place to sit. I also heard some people go; “Oooh, look it’s a white mage!” As a cosplayer there’s nothing as great as knowing that others like what your doing and appriciate you… and hearing how neat you look.

Anyhow, it was about to begin…

(All the songs had visuals from the games on 3 huge screens).
FF8 Liberi Fatali – I renember seeing the opening of FF8 when It came out in the USA game me chills… This was just such a wonderfull opening to it all. Of course they had a very wonderful Choir for this; Allmänna Sången.
FF10 To Zanarkand – Always been such a beautiful piece =(
FF8 Don’t be Afraid – Began with a hillarious clip with a Dog barking at Squall, Rinoa and Zell and Seifer. After a while Seifer ran away, the guys chased after and suddenly… the blurry zoom before a Fighting Scene appeard.. and the music started right on time for the fight 8D! Everyone Applauded. The fighting sceene suddenly changed fight and turned out into the famous Chasing scene where Squall is chased down to the docks by a huge mecha.
FF7 Aerith’s theme – Oh snap, I thought I’d cry… but whoever did the visuals made Cloud run around like a mofo and made us, the audience, laugh. Suddenly Aeris’ theme didn’t feel so sad but more …Aeris like =)
FF1-3′s Medley 2002 - They played  a variety of oldschool FF songs here like ‘Elia the maiden of water”, and “Eternal Wind” Beeing the nerd I am I found myself signing, silently, to all the songs that has a vocal track on either Pray or Love will Grow. The songs I love =)
!!! FF5 Dear Friends – I forgot to mention this! How embarrasing 8D! One of mah fav songs haha. I renember it came just before Vamo alla Flamenco since the same guy preformed the solo guitar here aswell =)
FF9 Vamo’ alla’ Flamenco – I was really looking forward to this song. Perhaps because it’s one of my favorite aqostic guitar pieces from FF. The guy playing the solo guitar was really skilled aswell… and a highlight was that they showed Zidane’s swordfight with Blank at the theatre play, with the button commandos 8D!
FF’s Main Theme – Love will grow, and nothing comes in the way, It’s true that love is here to stay; All we have to do is to face tomorrow!

Break - during the break Pauliina ran off to buy 2 Cds and a T-shirt (yay!) and I turned around to have a chat with a old cosplay friend named Nina. I also got patted on the head by some guy asking for a Heal. And some guys came and asked for my pic. When Pau got back I took my camera to chase cosplayers in the lobby (didn’t go too well tbh). I managed to find myself a party of a Red mage, white mage, blackmage and Kefka(!) and then the starting signals started! Rushing back.

FF7 Opening~ Bombing Mission – The well known and well loved opening to FFVII. I belive everyone felt that chill the first seconds into the song…
FF8 Fisherman’s Horizon- I pretty much knew they’d preform the “Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec“album allready, knowing it would be the best version to preform.
FF11 Memora de la Stono – Distant Worlds – Ohboy. The song I somehow looked most forward to hearing was actually this song. I got so emotional during this song, specially thinking about all my time on FFXI =(. Seeing ingame movies from both Zilart and Promathia missions that I’ve done togheter with my friends… also first song were a solo sopran preformed, miss Strid. Dear god do I wish I could sing like her, she was a joy to listen to.
FF4 Theme of Love – I’ve never been much of a fan of this song, honestly. We got to see some nice CG from the new DS game however =) Cecil looks so stunning! However, I would have prefered if they preformed either Troian Beauty, Into the Darkness or the Main theme of FFIV >(((! 
FF Swing the Chocobo – First time ever! Chocobo theme from FF10 8D! or that’s what I thought it was, because it was preformed the same way =( But the name is different. FF10 is Brass the Chocobo. But I swear it’s the same… I’ll have to listen to the DW CD…To be contiuned!
FFIII’s DS-version OP – What can I say =) Lovely new version of a 8bit song. A bit of a medly with the FF Main theme and Eternal Wind. 
FF8 Love Grows – Eyes on Me, but no vocals. Was very relaxing to listen to and they showed some footage from the end of FF8.
FF6 Opera - Maria and Draco – Dare I say the Highlight of the this Concert? The famous FF6 Opera brought to life! We had 3 sopranos here, which Maria (Celes) and Draco were indeed married irl! It gave such wonderful atmosphere to the whole preformance because they kept giving eachother such gaazes X). I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything as majestic as this before. The preformance was about 12 Min long, and they even showed the whole ‘real’ FF6 opera on the screens, which ofc gave some laughter and applauses. After this Everyone stood up and applauded…and applauded…and it kept on and kept on for ages and ages and ages. I dunno how many minutes but it felt like 15 mins of just applauding.

And here it ended, or so it was supposed to do… but mr Roth had a surprise up his sleeve or so he claimed… and boy was he right. 

Suddenly it began…Tina’s Theme (well, they said Terra’s theme stupid americans =( ). I didn’t expect this at all, and I was so sad that they weren’t going to play it. I couldn’t hold my tears upon seeing the introvid to FF6 play in the background =(! This is it! This was the very begining to all of this (for me).  I renembered how me and sis bought FF6 for SNES (ntsc) at a gamestore in Finland for about 100 skr). how we brought it home, on Xmas Eve claiming we had bought it cheap from one of those Santa Clauses selling cheap toys (scared mum would scold us for paying 100kr for a game..funny it’s worth past 1000kr now).

And lastly, mr Roth laughed and told us; “Did you really think I’d skip this one?” One Winged Angel. What can I say =p Advent Children version (we got to see pretty Cloud 8D!), and I am prolly the only person in the world that DO NOT adore this song to death <_< 

 After another millenium of Applauses, whistles and mr Uematsu appering about 2-3 times on the stage, it was about to get up and get ready for the next big thing: Meet and Greet. Having been sitting indoors without bringing anything to drink in my pretty warm Cosplay, I was totally torn down. And Nervous. What would I tell mr Uematsu, and would he accept my gift? I can’t renember how long we stood in that que, and how much I fiddled with everything that could be fiddled with, made sure all my “signed-to-be” items were in order and correcting my wig and hood. After a while a guy came to me and said “You look like big fan, can I interview you?”. Turns out he’s from Germany, doing a cover about the concert. So politely I went on talking about the concert. I must have sounded awfully lame when I think about it… atleast my english was there for me. He stood around and chatted with me for a while actually, which was sorta nice and relaxing. Turns out he was finish, but living in Germany. Gladly he didn’t speak to me in either of those languages and his english wasn’t bad at all.

Wainting…waiting…waiting…

Some Japanese woman comes from the team up front and asks for my picture… knowing how unphotogenic I am.. *shudders*

Waiting Waiting waiting…

We comepare our stuff to be signed with some guys from Umeå that’s ahead of us. Suddenly a younger japanese man, that we’ve seen standing around behind mr Uematsu and mr Roth, sneaks up and looks at me under my hood and smiles… He said something in japanese, which I couldn’t hear because I was pretty surprised… but apperantly it was something like “Aaa pretty!”. Knowing my manners around japanese people I was like “a a a aa ” *bow bowbow*. The kind of act you do when you thank somone.
Soon enough it’s time for my spot in the line. Nervous! What to say? I walk up and give mr Uematsu a huge smile (goofy I know) and he says “Ah, White mage!” I hurriedly reach out and give him my Artwork gift, and the young japanese man that’s standing behind Uematsu again goes “ Oooh, Sweden“. Mr Uematsu thanks me for it and then I hurriedly give him my things to be signed… my Ff7 Piano Scorebook, the new DW CD and the Ticket. (Hurried as I felt I totally forgot to shakehands =(…)
I ask for mr Roth’s signature on the Ticket and the Cd, but since I asked mr Uematsu to sign on the plastic (Mint condition!) he managed to smudge out mr Uematsu’s sign! So he smiles and say; “You remove that plastic and we’ll both sign the CD on the inside.” The plastic was horrible to remove! Stressy! But since Pauliina was behind me I felt that I didn’t have too much preassure (she was getting her stuff signed by mr Uematsu).

Mission Accomplished!

Sadly, mr Uematsu’s pen must have sucked seeing how it smeared on everything he signed (I checked other friends’ stuff too) and my Piano score book’s sign got a bit smeared since the front was glossy =(. As soon as I got home I put some tape over it; problem fixed! I felt so clever.  

I’ve most likely forgotten to mention something here, and if I did I’ll bring it up later.

We went home, tired but happy. THE END!