Sonic Symphony 2024 - Boston, MA

September 16, 2024 (Last modified Thu Sep 19 12:46 AM -0400)

I attended the Sonic Symphony’s Boston showing today, my second time so far. I had a blast there, and I wanted to write up something real quick to document my experience.

The orchestra preparing before the show started. The screen above is showing the time until the concert begins.

The orchestra getting ready to perform.

As usual, the concert was split into two parts, the first being orchestral medleys, and the second being a straight up rock/heavy metal concert. The Sonic 1/2/3 segments are always a treat, especially with the video accompanying them, but the real treat this time was not one, but two entirely new compositions: a Sonic Heroes medley (complete with obligatory Sonic X Shadow Generations footage, as a treat), and…

Dreams of an Absolution?

They turned this into an orchestral piece? And it worked?

Honestly, I love the fact that this team is embracing all these different aspects of the overall sound of Sonic. Not many franchises I’m aware of can pivot from orchestral music to heavy metal to rap to techno-pop ballads so smoothly.

Performance of "I Am... All of Me". On the screen above is the scene from I think Shadow the Hedgehog of one of the G.U.N. soldiers about to shoot Maria.

Never in my life have I heard so many people cheer so after seeing a 12 year old girl get murdered by the military. It was great.

Of course, the second part was an absolute knockout. The two lead singers were fantastic, as was everyone else (I think the conductor also started singing a bit towards the end!). Admittedly I’m not really enough of a music nerd to nail down specifics of what they were doing or what I liked so much, but the energy of this show was palpable, and the orchestration behind the band all throughout added so much.

Another picture of the performers except it's kinda blurry because my hand slipped. Some stuff from Sonic and the Black Knight is up on the screen.

Kinda messed up this shot, whoops.

The audience’s energy was infectious. Everyone around me was either losing their minds or having a religious experience. Not gonna lie, I got misty-eyed quite a bit all throughout.

The kid sitting next to me was clearly having the time of his life, and frankly I’m glad for him.

During "Reach For the Stars", the band asked everyone to turn on their flashlights. Really blurry picture this time, but you can see a bunch of phone lights and glow sticks all throughout the audience.

They had everyone turn on their camera flash for Reach For the Stars. Lotsa glow sticks in the mix, too.

Early on I noticed that one of the singers was doing some death metal-ish vocal stuff, and immediately I realized that their take on the Frontiers stuff was going to be intense.

They did not disappoint.

The band performing "Break Through it All" while looking really, really cool. Also some Sonic Frontiers stuff on the screen, naturally.

You know this was a real rock concert because the performers had some of the most dazzling outfits I've ever seen. Just look at those red/blue pants!

I was not at all surprised to learn that the woman singer, Adrienne Cowan, is also part of a metal band aside from this.

Like the last time, the encore was Live and Learn (which was incredible, don’t get me wrong, but it just feels a little incomplete without Open Your Heart), except this time they decided to follow it up with maybe their most beautiful performance.

The bandleaders in a little ring at the front of the stage, performing an incredible acoustic rendition of "One Way Dream".

Never in a million years could I have predicted this ending.

For their last song, they told us they wanted to play something entirely acoustic, and so the audience had to be almost completely silent, while they gathered at the front of the stage and put on an unbelievable rendition of One Way Dream, one of the ending songs from Frontiers.

For the record, the concert hall is massive, and yet they were able to fill the whole room with sound, all without their equipment.

What an ending.

One last picture of the band, closing out at the end of the show.

One of those nights that I'll never forget.

And just for fun, here’s one last picture I took on the way back out. I didn’t notice at the time but there’s a bunch of Sonic fans hiding in this picture like little cryptids. Collect them all!

A picture of some of the skyscapers in Boston. You can kinda make out a few people who dressed up/cosplayed for the show.

Boston is a very pretty city at night.

I don’t know if there are going to be any more concerts, but if there are I’ll be there for sure. Incredible night.

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