The most impressive moment of the night was the end of his normal set into the encore. The first half of the concert was pretty laid back (lots of breaks between songs and more of the chill stuff). After "Live High" (which featured his horn section playing from the balcony and pictures of Obama during the second verse) he did a seamless transition into "Only Human". Then he instructed us on some choreography, which gave away that "Dynamo" was next. He closed the normal set out with an extended version of "I'm Yours" that concluded in Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" and various scatting and audience participation. The theatre was electric.
As for the encore? Initially he and the opening singer did "Lucky" as a duet. Then, right when I realized that he did nothing from his oldest album, he broke into a mega-extended version of "Remedy" that turned into "Wonderall" by Oasis near the end. But it wasn't done! This merged into "No Stopping Us" which concluded in what seemed like an outro, complete with a curtain call (and taking of band pictures by Jason with his Polaroid, all of which he threw into the crowd). So the bow at the end meant it was over, right? Wrong! For "Butterfly" was next. The horns left afterward, but Jason and his main trio stayed to finish it off with "A Beautiful Mess"! It was kinda ridiculous; it was like he didn't want to leave. All in all it was a 45 minute encore. Well done!
Here's the setlist in full:
- Make It Mine
- Common Pleasure
- Girls to Watch Music By
- Life Is Wonderful
- Details in the Fabric
- Unfold (trio) w/My Sweet Thing
- Live High
- Only Human
- Dynamo of Volition
- I'm Yours
- Lucky
- Remedy
- No Stopping Us
- Butterfly
- Beautiful Mess
Finally! After about 13 years since the original and two since the Japanese release, Mother 3 is available in English! Huge props to the guys of the Mother 3 Fan Translation Project who dedicated themselves to translating and hacking this game for all American Earthbound fans to finally enjoy. However, inspired by another article I read on the subject, I would like to say that I also disagree with calls to buy the Japanese version of the game. See, the translation is technically a patch that you apply to the Japanese ROM. Now since ROMs are illegal unless you own the physical game (this is actually a myth--they're illegal regardless), the translators suggest that you import the cart from Japan in order to legitimize your English computer copy. But I object to this on two grounds.
- Piracy is what it is because you're obtaining something illegally; i.e. the product is available on the market and you are getting it for free. The English version of Mother 3, however, is not available on the market, so obtaining it via download is not piracy in my opinion. And,
- I owe Nintendo diddly-squat for this game. They did none of the work. They didn't spend two years going from Japanese to English and then modifying a pretty complex piece of code for my enjoyment. In fact, they sat there and specifically told me (and others) that they weren't sending Mother 3 to the States. Why then, do they deserve any gratitude from me? Why should I pay them for essentially slapping me in the face? Uh uh, no way. Nintendo laughs at all the idiots who are buying Mother 3 carts that they'll never be able to play. Well guess what? They won't be laughing at me.
