04/27/07

Piano Squall - Anime St. Louis (permalink)

gaming concert showmecon music con convention st_louis anime squall piano

"Piano Squall" is the stage name of a pianist who specializes in video game and anime music. I attended his concert Anime St. Louis last week and was very impressed with his performance.

Piano Squall began the show with an entertaining story of his origins and gave some insight into why he chose to pursue the performance of anime and video game music as a career. The bulk of the concert featured a variety of songs from anime such as Naruto, Full Metal Alchemist and Evangellion, and video games such as Chrono Trigger, Super Mario World, and most of the Final Fantasy series. It was obvious by his actions that Piano was very emotionally attached to the music he was playing. The crowd erupted into enthusiastic applause after the conclusion of every song.

At the end of the concert, Piano once again spoke before the audience to promote his new album "Game" which he produced with the aid of EA games. I found his salesmanship of the album to be a bit on the tacky side -- he very much seemed to be channeling the spirit of a thousand infomercial hosts in his presentation. Nevertheless, at the conclusion of the concert he was swarmed by the crowd elbowing their way to his table to pre-order his album and obtain a signed poster. While I did not join the crowd mobbing him at the end of the presentation, I was very impressed with his performance and the quality of the piano arrangements he wrote for many of the songs. I hope I get a chance to see him in concert again.