// PC GAMER — GAMING
'I was like, am I gonna pass out on stage?': Final Fantasy 14's rock band on transcending from videogame music to on-stage at the UK's biggest rock and metal festival
The Primals took to the stage at Donington Park in June.
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It's not very often I get to see my love of rock music and my love of videogame music intersect in interesting ways. But almost every single time I do, one game can be found at the core—Final Fantasy 14.
Welcome to Critical Hit, where I (or someone else on the PC Gamer team) celebrate and lament all things videogame music, audio design, and the ways our favourite games make our ears tingle.
Part of that is certainly thanks to The Primals, the MMO's official in-house rock band. It's led by FF14 composer Masayoshi Soken, accompanied by localisation lead Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and non-developers Eikichi Iawi, Tetsuya Tachibana, and GUNN.
Sporting a raw sound with distorted, screeching guitars and high-energy vocals from Soken and Fox, The Primals manages to strike this incredibly interesting balance of being right in the heart of nerdom while also putting out the kind of music that wouldn't sound amiss at your local rock show or festival.
It's no surprise, then, that The Primals felt right at home at Download, the UK's biggest rock and metal festival. It was the band's first non-Fan Festival appearance outside of Asia, and despite a short timeslot it was an absolute corker. I had the opportunity to sit down with Soken, Fox, and GUNN the day after their high-octane set, and it immediately struck me just how jazzed all three seemed to be—even after a night to sleep off the post-performance high.
I thought part of that might have been the release of all the nerves building up to the main performance, but it turns out the band didn't have much time for that. "[Download] took us around [the festival site] before we started, and the buggy that was supposed to take us back didn't come," Fox said.
"So we didn't get back until like, 10 minutes before we were supposed to go to the stage. Normally you sit around and you get nervous because you're thinking about it, but because all this was happening I didn't have time to get nervous. And by the time you get on the stage, it's like 'go, go, go'. And of course, once you see people, you take all of that power and go."
The Primals is rocking with a pretty decent discography at this point, but curating it to appeal to both fans and potential newcomers (some of whom may have never even played Final Fantasy 14) was important when it came to putting together the five-song setlist.