Listen to the Rain

Last night, sashagee and I went to a Sailor Moon musical.

I know very little about Sailor Moon and have no emotional attachment to it--I haven't seen a single episode of the original series, though I have seen Crystal, and I was not one of the people who grew up watching and bonded with it as a young child. sashagee is, though, so as soon as she heard that there was going to be a musical performance she asked if I wanted to go with her, and I said yes.

Our original plan was for me to come home, us to eat dinner, and then head down there and get to the doors around 7 p.m. I heard from multiple people that the merch line was insane and sold out extremely quickly, though, so mid-afternoon we changed our plans. She came down and met me after work, in her cutest red dress with her hair in odangos, and we went to Brightwok Kitchen, which was dairy-free, gluten-free, mostly egg-free, and thus while not technically heḥshered I at least felt comfortable eating there during Pesaḥ (my original thought was some other Asian restaurant but soy sauce has wheat in it so that was a no-go). We got some delicious rice bowls, checked to see if the tea store was still there (it was not), and then walked to the Chicago Theatre to stand in line. The line wasn't too long and we lucked out by all the existing VIP people moving through their line, so the back part of the main line where we were was routed through the VIP line instead. We immediately went through the merch line, got through in only a few minutes, and sashagee bought a branded lightstick (lit up in multiple colors and said セーラームーン on it) and a poster, and since we still had almost an hour and a half before the musical began, we bought popcorn and sat up on a bench on the balcony hallway and waited. We saw MomoManLove very briefly, talked with pearl.nongluk and bradford.bensontaylor about their struggles with the merch line, and saw gracielizabeth and pezroan waiting in the merch line which now extended all way down the downstairs hall and up seven(!) flights of stairs. They eventually got down to the front and came back, only to inform us that we were extremely lucky because the branded lightsticks had sold out and only generic Kpop-style ones were left. gracielizabeth had gotten VIP tickets so she was seated in the front with the bigwigs, whereas we were up on the balcony, and as the timer ticked down we took our seats.

The musical was fun! Which is to say, I had a nice time, but I was not one of the people screaming when Usagi did her first costume change and said the famous 月に代わって、お仕置きよ！ (tsuki ni kawatte, oshioki yo, "In the name of the moon, I will punish you!") The first half was a condensed version of the Dark Kingdom arc, which I've heard all of these musicals do, but it makes sense--being the first arc, there's no backstory you have to assume the audience knows, and it's the most theatrically-dramatic part with the love across lifetimes and the forces of the Dark Kingdom, here depicted as pre-War-style with neon and big band music. The sailor senshi fought song guys, Tuxedo Mask threw roses--all special effects were done on a giant screen behind the stage, where the supertitles were also displayed---they went up and down platforms and had fight scenes, and saved the world. If you're familiar all with Sailor Moon you know what happens. If you're not familiar with Sailor Moon, you would probably be in for a rough time because a bunch of stuff was cut out and I would have had very little idea what was happening if I hadn't already seen Sailor Moon Crystal. As it was, I kept thinking, "Wait, doesn't the villain have shitennō? Where are they?" (they were entirely cut)

The second half was a series of idol concert-style musical numbers. Most of them were reprises from the show, and the whole time I kept thinking, what about the theme song? There was a brief wordless version at near the beginning but everyone knows it and they haven't done it yet.

( Well, of course they were saving it for the finale )

We left and met up with people out in the lobby, but everyone decided not to go out to anywhere afterwards. Instead, we all just went home. On the way back, sashagee kept saying how amazing it was and how much she loved it and how glad she was she managed to get one of the coveted branded lightsticks. She gave it 10/10. I wouldn't go that far for the aforementioned reasons that I have no deep connection with Sailor Moon, but it was still a bunch of fun. Be prepared for the idol show, though, and make sure you know the plot. Otherwise you'll be lost.

A nerd symphony, of course.

A while back, I got an email that Distant Worlds was coming through town to do a concert specifically focused in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I last went to Final Fantasy music in January of 2020, right before the Plague Years, when I went to go see the chamber music version of that same concert series that had all the smaller hits that you don't need an 80 piece orchestra to perform. That got me excited for Distant Worlds again...and then, well, you know what happened. 🦠 So it wasn't until much later that I actually even had the opportunity to go again, and then I wouldn't have been interested in the material (and sashagee was still not feeling all that well). But more time passed, and sashagee's condition improved, and another version of Distant Worlds, this time focused on Final Fantasy XIV and XVI said they were coming to town. So that was the one we went to.

After the standard opening--the prologue, the victory fanfare, and so on--they did a few audience hit pieces like the Four Fiends theme from Final Fantasy IV and To Zanarkand from Final Fantasy X, and then go into the program. They started with Songs of Salt and Suffering, one of my favorite songs in all of the Stormblood expansion, and did Tomorrow and Tomorrow since they had Amanda Achen, the original singer, there to do the vocals. That meant they also did The Final Day and Flow from Endwalker, and both times sashagee specifically commented on how Achen's performance was amazing. They ended with a chocobo medley, and then went to intermission.

After the intermission and a couple more fan favorites like Dancing Mad and Aerith's Theme was the XVI portion of the show, and I don't have as much to say about that half because I still haven't played XVI so the only exposure to the music I have is the FFXIV collab, and that means I'm most familiar with Find the Flame because that's the song that plays when you ride the Torgal mount you get in FFXIV, and they did play that (apparently in the game it only plays once). They also played Ascension, which is another big bombastic choir song--when you have a full orchestra and a choir, you might as well take advantage of it--and a couple other songs that didn't really stick with me, then finally ended with the classic Sephiroth's Theme.

I've been to half-a-dozen of these by this point, so I had fun but it wasn't amazing because a lot of the songs are ones I've seen in concert before. Sephiroth's Theme is a classic encore, for example. But for sashagee, this was her first time, and she mentioned she got goosebumps during some of the songs. We'll definitely be going back, especially if I can find another performance of the A New World chamber series. The music there is less bombastic, but much more varied.

Bonus picture:



The concert finished not too long after 4 p.m., and since sashagee had forgotten to eat lunch, we went to a nearby restaurant that used to be my favorite to go to before the symphony: the Gage. The food is great and the problem I always used to have--that it would sometimes take up to forty-five minutes to get the check after we were fully finished with our food--wouldn't have mattered since it was after the concert and we didn't have anywhere else to be, so we walked in, immediately got a table over in the bar area, and checked the menu. I got the fish in the end, because even though I'm more often than not disappointed with fish I get at restaurants since they're mostly tasteless and put a sauce on it that provides all the flavor, which tastes like mush with sauce on it. Despite costing $40, this...wasn't really that different, to be honest. Halibut, cod, tilapia, all have that whitefish "we taste like nothing" thing going on that more usual fish I enjoy like salmon do not. I should have gotten the coconut curry with salmon or the pear salad, to be honest.

On the other hand, the fried pickles and curry fries were delicious, and sashagee was very happy with the burger she got, so at least we'll be going back next time we go to the symphony. And we got home at 7 p.m., like your standard tired parents, and went to bed not that long afterward.

A few weeks ago, someone on one of the Discord servers I'm on posted that Night Tempo was coming to America to do a concert. I had never heard any of his music, but sashagee is a huge city pop fan (one of the playlists I remember her listening to a lot on Spotify when we first met is called "City Bops") and it came recommended by 4PlayerPod, so I bought two tickets and got ready for some future funk.

On Tuesday I went to work as normal, and then when I was, I went down to Grand and waited for sashagee to get off the L. We had two hours before doors opened and no real plans about where to eat, so we wandered around River North looking at the restaurants. Most of the places I used to go--Slurping Turtle, Imperial Lamian, that burger restaurant on Hubbard whose name I don't remember--are closed now and I haven't spent enough time to find new places to really recommend one, and we had just decided on going to a burger place when we were walking by Ema and I mentioned how good it was and how long it had been since I had eaten there. sashagee said, well, why don't we go here then, and so we did! When we got in there was basically no one in there, just a couple people sitting around the bar and maybe one or two tables full, so we got a table in the bar section. And it's a good thing that we got in when we did, because in the middle of our meal the place started filling up and by the time our main courses came it was nearly full and people were having to wait.


Hummus and pita, crispy potatoes (absolutely amazing), feta cheese and olives as my main course. Not visible here was the salad that sashagee ordered and shared with me, and in return I shared the potatoes with her. Not visible here is the gin cocktail I got or the chocolate mousse cake we split. Since we had plenty of time and were about three blocks from the concert location, we stayed at dinner around two hours, right up until the doors opened, and then walked over to House of Blues.

I have literally never arrived at a concert when the doors opened so it was eerie to go in and see the place almost entirely empty. That turned out to be not just that we arrived early--we had heard from 4PlayerPod that Night Tempo had mentioned online that some cities on his US tour had sold extremely well and some of them had sold...less well, and it turned out that Chicago was one of the less well-selling cities. Even when everyone finally arrived the room was only about half-full, and while I'm sure this was disappointing for Night Tempo, it turned out that this was the most fun way to experience a concert I've ever had. Much like the problem with tourist locations being all the other damn tourists polluting it with their presence, the problem with concerts is that there are too many people there and it's impossible to get a good view, dance without people getting in your way, or really have the best time until you get there early and stand in the middle the whole time. Not here. 4PlayerPod, his girlfriend, sashagee, and I all had a great spot near the middle when for the opening act--a local named DJ Mochi who was actually really good--and then Night Tempo came out, introduced himself as "Random Asian man," and got to playing.


One disadvantage of a smaller crowd size could have been lowered enthusiasm, but that wasn't the case here. Everyone who was here really wanted to be there, so when he got up to the front and started jumping around on stage, the entire crowd followed. We listened to some of his original pieces and a lot of funky remixes of classic city pop hits like "黄昏のBay City" and of course "Plastic Love." 4PlayerPod and his girlfriend had to leave about twenty minutes before the end of the show so they missed Plastic Love, but we stayed up until the end. And with a medium-sized audience, there was no crowd all leaving at the same time! An amazing show, and I'm glad we caught it because the ticket sales make think it won't happen again.

If you want to check out Night Tempo's music, his entire discography is available for $16.