Iirc Keiko,the pianist,has mentioned somewhere that soken just indeed jumped that one on her with no warning,so that face was her pure and unfiltered reaction.
Honestly, considering the "Do you know Yanxia" incident from the 2018 NA Fanfest, she probably should have seen that one coming as soon as he got on stage with multiple otamatones...
@@shizucheese I forgot the timeline of the concert last year,but wasnt soken also on stage shaking his ass while wearing a chicken hat to papaya earlier on in the show?At that point she should´ve started expecting him just getting more chaotic from that point on tbh.That man was (rightfully) excuding the most chaotic energy the whole concert segment,I´m honestly looking forward to what chaos he will unleash during next years fanfest.
More specific context for people who don't play the game; any time you load into this zone, there's the brief period of silence and then you're just smacked with LA HEE!, so if you finish a dungeon or log back in and forgot you were there, it's waiting around the corner for you. That's what became the meme.
Also, a little bit of insight, this fan fest performance, he had just been discharged from the hospital after his battle with cancer, (which we didn't know until the final day of the fan fest), but he was definitely just wanting to be the chaotic little gremlin he's known to be because he was finally released and able to enjoy life again.
Not only did we (the fans) not know about his fight with cancer, hardly anyone on the development team knew either. Pretty much only YoshiP and probably a select few people from HR knew. He was composing the music for the SHB patches and upcoming EW expansion from his hospital bed in secret.
* has this pinned and ready for premiere* My FC calls him our beloved cryptid because he's always doing silly things like this. Dude "rode" a toy car behind the Endwalker big rig, just for the lulz. He's a treasure and we must protect him at all costs.
I can already hear Soken. "Do you know 'La Hee'?" I actually am really impressed with his ability to play 2 otomatone while singing(?) the song. It's such a classic Soken moment, when I happened, I sent it to my mom going "This is the composer for the game I play", hoping she would show it to her husband for a laugh, since he's a band director.
Soken did "La hee" as a gag at fanfest last year, it was so brilliant and hilarious. The womans face being pure "what is happening?" just made it that much better.
Thing is, I don't think this is the first time he's done something like this. So, you'd think she'd be used to it by now. But I guess no one is prepared for the magnificence that is Soken doing La Hee live.
The first thing the man does after leaving the hospital fighting for his life is THIS. Just this. Without anyone knowing what happened before that he just comes out and screams out the meme from his heart. Soken's our hero.
Masayoshi Soken has a history of doing these jank performances at Fan Fests just to mess with the audience. I believe he also did one in 2016 by kicking a box while playing piano, and another in 2019 with the otomatone playing the Yanxia theme.
I unironically love Civilizations. It's one of my favorite summer driving songs. I just blare the shit out of it and sing along with the gibberish. And if I realize that it's upcoming, I go "music, START-O!!!" just before it starts. Also, Soken is a gem. Also, also, nothing will top this until the next Fan Fest. Probably.
Soken's shitposts are all equally brilliant and amazing, there is no ranking them. Listening to Civilizations while driving during a summer night seems like a fast track to a speeding ticket, for me, song is way too great.
This song was actually shown in the the preview for the expansion, so I was looking forward to whatever place it was going to play, so when I first came here and heard it, I was so happy! That also shows how mucht Soken and his team must have loved this track for it to be shown in an early preview :D And we always look forward to gags like this by Soken every FanFest because he always purposefully butchers up one of his tracks or does something really weird for the laughs during the event - and we never know which one it will be, so even when we saw this on the setlist, we expected someone like Amanda singing it :D As for the Otomatones, I think the story goes that on one of the FanFests someone showed him the Otomatone for the first time and he enjoyed it greatly that he ended up playing around with them for a few performances xD
@@shadowcat1606 He definitely wasn't talking about the original, he's on about the live performance called "La Hee", he also did one back in Stormblood for the Yanxia theme too
the weird loop effect comes from the fact that it's the day time theme for the Rak'tika Greatwood, so it doesn't have to loop perfectly everytime. It also catches you of guard when you go into a cutscene at night and come back out of it when it turned day and the game just suddenly goes: "LA HEE!"
The loop is part of the game, and became famous in the community immediately upon Shadowbringers' release. Everytime you load into the area (including out of a cutscene) the music starts over, so you'll come out of an emotional scene only to be greeted with "LA HEE!" hence, the fan name.
oi just imagine they Put La hee in a place where the story Goes Emotionaly Hard like the saddess part of Shadowbringers only whenever you want to cries you got laugh instead becausse La hee
Keiko's worked with Soken before, so she knows he's a troll, but probably not what specifically was going to happen. Soken wasn't allowed to practice this before-hand so he was going into it blind. And of course he not only plays the otomatone, but two of them at the same time while singing. It was also the next day that we found out he was writing music from the hospital for half a year while recovering from cancer. It was a really emotional announcement and worth a watch.
Soken is hilarious. He does a few weird things in some of his live performances. He did a piano piece once and used a cardboard box that he would kick for sound instead of a bass drum. Also, for context, this performance of La Hee was made after he entered remission from cancer (which he announced at the end of the same live event)
His Twitter account also has silly things, like when a promotional truck drove past the camera slowly and Soken was scooting after it on what looked like a child's toy car.
La Hee means 'wake up' and when it plays in game its just as the sun is rising. You first hear it in the cutscene when entering the Greatwood for the first time, very memorable.
You can blame a random fan Soken met who showed him an Otamatone. Dunno when it happened, but it was before this happened. That fan will forever go down in history because without them and that singular minuscule moment in the grand history we call life, this may have never happened the way it did.
The Pianist is Keiko, and she and Soken did "A Long fall" together on piano also in this fanfest video. Soken loves to do this sort of thing at Fanfests. It's so nice when a master musician can , basically, meme himself.
One of my favourite Soken things is that interview where he describes making the percussion for the Costa Del Sol music out of anything he could find round the office. He didn't have time to go out and buy maracas, so the sound in that track is something like paper clips and mints in an empty plastic noodle cup. He also played the Yanxia music on the otomatone at a previous event, same pianist, same startled expression.
I remember the first time I entered Raktika woods. I still remember what my character was wearing, what I was doing, what I was thinking. It's one of those songs that captures a moment. I love this song. I love the music. I own a house in 14 and the first music on my playlist when entering is Civilization. It's just that amazing.
There is actually a meme dance which the Devs did for another fanfest for the theme of the twinning a long fall. Soken is an absolute meme lord at fanfest. As for why otamatones, you'll have to blame a fan of FFxiv who upon meeting soken at a previous fanfest introduced him to the strange instruments. After that the fan lamented his cursed dealings after that fanfest XD
Someone, good at remember the names of things, tell this man about the music in Radz-at-Han! Most places have a daytime theme and a nighttime theme. oh yeah...That man is precious!
This might get lost in the sea of requests, but my biggest recommendation for an overworld theme from FFXIV would be the Azys Lla Theme ( Order Yet Undeciphered ). It's from a floating complex of advanced technology that's been lost to time, and I feel like the music is really good at reflecting this.
This is one of those song where u just go to the zone just to listen to the music couse its so relaxing. As for Soken's performance, well, it should explain why most ppl know the song as La Hee eh? such a fun way to do it :)
This was during fanfest 2021 about a good year ago and it was online because of Covid so for a lot of us (including me) this was our very first fanfest. While watching the concert he would just randomly appear and do his thing as our memelord and savior and then he became the absolute legend for this. You better believe all the channels that were watching the performance (RUclips, Twitch, Niconico) were all "??????" and "YOOOOO" at the same time xD He does know the name of the OST since he wrote it but we all know it better by "LaHee". It got memed so much that they added a quests they explained that "LaHee" means "wake up". Also, what made him even more of a legend was... since we (and by we i mean the players and 99,99% of the development team since only the CEO and YoshiP (director) knew about what was happening and were told not to tell anyone to keep the normalcy) found out during fanfest a bit later that he was battling cancer, the first thing he did when they let him out of the hospital was this. The performance was so good in its chaotic way that I'm serious about spending money if they make an orchestrion version in the game.
The funny part about the song is that you'll enter the Greatwood with this nice poetic speech about the land and the people who live there, then as soon as the cutscene ends "LA HEE". It happens immediately after several serious cutscenes, and it just makes me snort everytime.
Yeah, your reaction here was about everyone else's, no worries. XD Soken is... very unique. There's a video of him scooting after a semi-truck (that they'd commissioned to advertise Endwalker) on a toddler's toy car. We love this man.
It isn't that much of a deviation simply because 14 has literally had every single genre ever at least once, and you haven't really been sent many world themes, mostly dungeon and battle. And it is supposed to be the language of the civilization that used to live in Rak'tika. La hee means rise up. And yes, this is real he played twin otomatones and sang off key live. The devs of FFXIV are just awesome people. They embrace memes and live to entertain. As for why? He sad he just likes the otomotone.
This track absolutely BLEW my mind when i heard it the first time. I had been playing the game with Mount music and combat music on and immediately after hearing this track went and switched both of them off. absolutely incredible area music.
Yessss! I remember one of your videos a while ago asking about soken and if he played other stuff or had a band and I commented with the link to him performing this live. So glad you got to see it. It was a lot of fun. I know I laughed so hard the first time I saw it, I was in tears. Just the look on the pianist's face and watching Soken Run away.
Yeah so some context for his live performance, Soken did an intentionally weird version of the song as a prank with a purposefully off-key vocal performance and the automatones. Huge shit post during a livestream for Fanfest, the big FFXIV convention. He just showed up, did *this* and left. It was so, SO funny to see this live. I was crying. Her reaction is priceless. She's a professional piano player and one of her first impressions of Masayoshi Soken, the musical genius of FFXIV, was him trolling everyone with this glorious shitpost.
To add a bit more context to the La Hee meme prior to Soken doing this, it just became a common thing people shout in chat when they enter that area (because of the song) specially in larger events like hunt trains (something organized regularly by the community which gathers a lot of people). There’s also a sidequest which makes you go around and shout La Hee for some reason.
The fan who introduced the otamatone to Soken had no idea what she'd unleashed. Soken would have an Otamatone moment each Fan Fest since, culminating in this. See "Masayoshi Soken Plays the Otamatone" for the fateful moment.
Soken not only composed some of the greatest Final Fantasy music in existence, he also provides vocals for several of the tracks in FFXIV (Rise, for one)
Thats our SOKEN! THATS the master mind behind most of the XIV music youve been reacting to! XD He did another meme ver with the otamatone with the "Yanxia" song at the 2019 tokyo fan fest.
The meme this became is such an awesome (comforting? Maybe? Idk, i was way late to this part of msq) Contrast to the quests through this area. Thanks for listening!!
Soken gave "Yanxia" the same treatment a few years ago.... It was the first part of the Tsukiyomi music you just reacted to, so you'll get the reference if you look it up! Soken is a treasure.
The live performance was from the online fanfest last year. I watched this happen live on stream and was smiling and laughing the entire time. He did something similar with the otomatone at a previous fanfest with another overworld theme. Soken is a legend.
Every time you enter the zone the song starts out with La-Hee! So when people load into the area, they generally will shout "La-Hee!, and other people will replay with "La-Hee!". The song itself is just a weird in game meme.
So, for a bit of context, Soken just kinda does this, but this time was special. He did this before revealing on this same event later on that he composed part of the Shadowbringers' expansion soundtrack from the hospital, working while going through chemo while none of the dev team knew, to the surprise of everyone but one person on stage with him, and that he was already in remission by then. The guy's a badass.
The song was in the game from shadowbringers launch in 2019. The lyrics for ffxiv bgm are almost never made public near when it first makes it into the game, so there's a dedicated community of players trying to decipher them, and La Hee became a meme because of it. The la hee performance was 2 years later, though soken does these otamatone things at every fanfest round and this one was just elevated by the sheer awkwardness of not having a live crowd and Keiko sitting back there not knowing what to do.
"Waited months and months for like two minutes?" Yyyyyyyuuuuuuuup. You know why? It's because you won't forget this, or it will at least be a long time until you do. I've heard many video game songs over the course of my life and La-hee is one of the most memorable. \o/
4:25 That is still a jumpscare. What makes this song so notorious is they simply do not adjust. You'll be in a quiet or solemn or serious cutscene or have a huge lore bomb dropped on you, and the moment you leave the cutscene you are bombarded with LA HEE! Best part of this is his poor pianist knows him, knows he's crazy, and even SHE was shocked for a moment before re-finding her chill and rolling with it.
Soken regularly does amazing shit like this and then just walks away like nothing happened. Also, he called it La Hee because that's what it's called most of the time. Also, the Otamatone is actually the instrument you heard that sounded like bagpipes. This was a follow-up to the live shitpost he did at the previous FanFest when he used the Otamatone to destroy his Yanxia theme.
mystery, secret and hidden tribes, magic, culture, ancient civilisations, ruins and temples. basically The Rak'tika Greatwood. No matter how annoyed people get at the meme, I'll never get bored of it. so so good. the night theme is the instrumental version which is much tamer. and then ofc theres Soken taking the stage at the Fan Festival. Watching it broadcast live, probably a little drunk with friends on discord, we were all in tears from laughter. definitely a memorable night.
"How do I describe this music?" La Hee, that's it, that's all you need. You say that to anyone and they'll know exactly what kinda music you're talking about.
The vocals are just gibberish and come from a sample library. If you purchase Era II Vocal Codex for 160€ then you too can use the original "Lahee" lyrics in your music! :D
Yeap that's our Soken. Gets up on stage. Shitposts his own music. Doesn't elaborate. Runs away. Absolute legend. The actual song is in a made up language. Doesn't even have a translation (aside from "la hee" being later said to mean "good morning" or something), just exists to sound like... something.
it was something to watch this live. because they just go from serious live renditions of various songs and then LA HEE happens. gotta love Soken and the team for keeping up with the community's memes.
There's so many great tracks in FFXIV. Uematsu and Soken are such geniuses and masters of so many different styles. Here's some more of the greatest tracks: A Realm Reborn: Answers (base game main theme), I Am The Sea (Limsa Lominsa day bgm), Under the Weight (Titan boss final phase bgm), Oblivion (Shiva boss final phase bgm), Good King Moogle Mog XII (said boss bgm), Out of the Labyrinth (Syrcus Tower raid non-combat bgm), Battle on the Big Bridge (Gilgamesh boss bgm) Heavensward: Dragonsong (expansion cutscene bgm), The Mushroomery (Matoya's Cave bgm), Heroes (Knights of the Round boss bgm), Locus (Alexander boss bgm), Metal: Brute Justice Mode (Brute Justice boss bgm), Rise (Alexander final boss bgm) Stormblood: The Measure of Our Reach (Garlemald dominion version of Ala Mhigo national anthem), Wayward Daughter (Tsukiyomi boss bgm), eScape (Omega boss bgm) Shadowbringers: Tomorrow and Tomorrow (expansion cutscene bgm), A Long Fall (The Twinning dungeon bgm), To The Edge (Warrior of Light boss bgm), Who Brings Shadow (Hades boss bgm), What Angel Wakes Me (Titania boss bgm) Endwalker: Footfalls (expansion main theme), Flow (expansion cutscene bgm), Close in the Distance (Ultima Thule area bgm), With Hearts Aligned (Endsinger boss final phase bgm) Perhaps the most important of these is A Long Fall, because it was such a jam fans made a bunch of meme dancing videos with it. The most widely known of those is one with the Double Dream Feet meme dancing to it, and that one became so popular that it even became _part of the official choreography_ for the song. The Primals (the official in-house band that makes most of the music for the game, and performs much of it at live events) dance the Double Dream Feet at 2:16 in their official music video. The devs even had four guys dress up in the same outfit as the guy in the original meme video (except with shirt colors changed to match the roles in-game: blue for a tank, green for a healer, and two red for dps) and dance it at the Fanfest 2021 live event.
He did the another theme from the Stormblood expansion the year before, and if I recall right, Keiko (an absolute wonder) had a similar look where she had to try and remain professional. He's a massive memelord, and to think he was fresh out the hospital from cancer at this digital fanfest, too.
It is world music. Where the player is flying through exactly. I rarely don't get sick of world music, no matter how good the song is, but I cracked it every time I walked around that forest.
One other funfact about the Song is that the Lyrics arebasicaly just Giblish. In one Live Letter where questions of the Fans got Answered one was about what Language the Lyrics were sung in where Songen clearly said he just took sounds that sound nice together wich in turn shocked YoshiP who till that point thought it was French or something
If I recall correctly the language in this song is a made up "forest spirit" language that is supposed to imply the spirits of the forest greeting you as you explore. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere but I may be wrong.
We waited for it, and it was absolutely worth it. And remember Soken, this absolute legend is the guy who was writing music from a hospital bed cause he is that dedicated
The vocals in the track were actually taken from a sample library. Soken cleverly used those vocal samples in his composition. He also used the same library to implement vocals in another track in FFXIV. Or rather, it's used as a recurring motif in a certain zone in FFXIV.
That loop a bit weird when you listen to the song by itself but in game when the song stops you get to hear just the forest ambience and foley for a few seconds and it's great.
Everyone knows Soken is a Big Fan of Otamatone's on Fanfest he often Plays with them. It became a running Gag. Have one signed by Soken from 2019's Fanfest in Paris. Also as for some Clearification. He perform "La-Hee" on the second Day of Fanfest 2021 and indtantly became a Meme. At the third Day at the Ending Panel he announced his Cancer Diagnosis in front of all the Staff Members and of course in the Livestream. And aside of Yoshi-P and the Square CEO nobody was aware of it and he still wrote Songs like To the Edge while laying in a Hospital Bed.
Soken just does shit like this. He gets up in front of everybody, shitposts live and in person, then runs away and you just have to live with it.
indeed. it's a ffxiv fanfest tradition ever since he was introduced to the otomotone :D
The Scars of Battle with a cardboard box was hilarious too!
An absolute legend given what he's been through
Soken can take a huge shit on his compositions and run away like a boss
This right here is peak shitpost performance. You may not like it but this right here. This is what it looks like.
The absolute best part was the pianist making her LinkedIn bio picture that face. 😀
No way, name or link?
LMAO
SHE DID?! I love it !!
La Hee is what happens when a virtuoso uses his powers for evil.
🎼🎶😈
Not evil but he became what he must the Bard of Darkness.
🤣😂😈
Iirc Keiko,the pianist,has mentioned somewhere that soken just indeed jumped that one on her with no warning,so that face was her pure and unfiltered reaction.
Honestly, considering the "Do you know Yanxia" incident from the 2018 NA Fanfest, she probably should have seen that one coming as soon as he got on stage with multiple otamatones...
im not suprise Soken also purposely want to prank her at same time
@@shizucheese I forgot the timeline of the concert last year,but wasnt soken also on stage shaking his ass while wearing a chicken hat to papaya earlier on in the show?At that point she should´ve started expecting him just getting more chaotic from that point on tbh.That man was (rightfully) excuding the most chaotic energy the whole concert segment,I´m honestly looking forward to what chaos he will unleash during next years fanfest.
@@zecendia Yes he got on stage with the chicken hat, the Alpha mascot, and the Moogle mascot to boogie. That video still has me laughing hard.
However, it's not the first time he's done that to her.
When anyone asks, who is Soken? This- this is Soken, and the Final Fantasy 14 community will protect this precious man at any cost 🤣
No better way to say it :D Must protec!
This "wierd loop" is literally how the track is looped in game. With a big ass patch of silence, just to junpscare you with La Hee
More specific context for people who don't play the game; any time you load into this zone, there's the brief period of silence and then you're just smacked with LA HEE!, so if you finish a dungeon or log back in and forgot you were there, it's waiting around the corner for you. That's what became the meme.
And la hee means wake up lol so makes sense .
Also, a little bit of insight, this fan fest performance, he had just been discharged from the hospital after his battle with cancer, (which we didn't know until the final day of the fan fest), but he was definitely just wanting to be the chaotic little gremlin he's known to be because he was finally released and able to enjoy life again.
Not only did we (the fans) not know about his fight with cancer, hardly anyone on the development team knew either. Pretty much only YoshiP and probably a select few people from HR knew. He was composing the music for the SHB patches and upcoming EW expansion from his hospital bed in secret.
@@dragonbretheren iirc it was YoshiP and the CEO.
@@kuroganekaze Some HR personnel would ultimately know it to for legal reasons but yeah, in the end only a selected few would have known it
"Is this real?" that's what we were all thinking when it happened :D Turns out Soken is a memelord!
* has this pinned and ready for premiere* My FC calls him our beloved cryptid because he's always doing silly things like this. Dude "rode" a toy car behind the Endwalker big rig, just for the lulz. He's a treasure and we must protect him at all costs.
apparently all he told the pianist was "It's going to get weird" with no further context
The man survived cancer, he has probably ran out of fucks to give and does pretty much whatever he wants to do.
So, La Hee was the first Fan Fest that Soken was able to attend after beating cancer. This was how he chose to celebrate. Soken is a goddamn legend.
I'm so glad you finally got to see this legendary performance. Soken is a treasure beyond value.
The abrupt loop is part of the “La Hee” experience.
I can already hear Soken. "Do you know 'La Hee'?"
I actually am really impressed with his ability to play 2 otomatone while singing(?) the song. It's such a classic Soken moment, when I happened, I sent it to my mom going "This is the composer for the game I play", hoping she would show it to her husband for a laugh, since he's a band director.
The funny part is, Soken is really good at singing, he just messes around from time to time, live on stage just for the fun of it xD
Soken did "La hee" as a gag at fanfest last year, it was so brilliant and hilarious. The womans face being pure "what is happening?" just made it that much better.
Thing is, I don't think this is the first time he's done something like this. So, you'd think she'd be used to it by now. But I guess no one is prepared for the magnificence that is Soken doing La Hee live.
It’s almost like he watched the video in this RUclips video 😅
Yeah it's in this video lmao
@@LordoftheDice At the previous fanfest he did Yanxia that way, but there's no lyrics. So, she really wasn't ready for his singing like that.
@@tjl9458 Well, he was yodeling for Yanxia though
Oh no... I never thought that Jesse would react to THAT master piece.
Soken was actually introduced to the Otomatones by a fan at a fan fest and has since learned to use them as actual instruments
The first thing the man does after leaving the hospital fighting for his life is THIS. Just this. Without anyone knowing what happened before that he just comes out and screams out the meme from his heart. Soken's our hero.
Masayoshi Soken has a history of doing these jank performances at Fan Fests just to mess with the audience. I believe he also did one in 2016 by kicking a box while playing piano, and another in 2019 with the otomatone playing the Yanxia theme.
I unironically love Civilizations. It's one of my favorite summer driving songs. I just blare the shit out of it and sing along with the gibberish. And if I realize that it's upcoming, I go "music, START-O!!!" just before it starts.
Also, Soken is a gem.
Also, also, nothing will top this until the next Fan Fest. Probably.
Soken's shitposts are all equally brilliant and amazing, there is no ranking them.
Listening to Civilizations while driving during a summer night seems like a fast track to a speeding ticket, for me, song is way too great.
@@Sojo214 Of my many playlists, I do have one labeled speeding tickets and Civilizations is in it.
This song was actually shown in the the preview for the expansion, so I was looking forward to whatever place it was going to play, so when I first came here and heard it, I was so happy! That also shows how mucht Soken and his team must have loved this track for it to be shown in an early preview :D
And we always look forward to gags like this by Soken every FanFest because he always purposefully butchers up one of his tracks or does something really weird for the laughs during the event - and we never know which one it will be, so even when we saw this on the setlist, we expected someone like Amanda singing it :D
As for the Otomatones, I think the story goes that on one of the FanFests someone showed him the Otomatone for the first time and he enjoyed it greatly that he ended up playing around with them for a few performances xD
Also heard one of the oto's he's using was the one that fan gave him.
It was the 2014 Fan Festival where he was shown it, first thing he does is learn to play chocobo theme in about 5 seconds of holding it.
here you go ruclips.net/video/tlpvTbS1yq0/видео.html as far as i know this was the first time he messed with the instrument
Soken always does a "comic relief" song that's hilarious and also somehow brliliant, he's one of a kind. The pianist is always making funny faces.
I wouldn't even call this song a joke or comic relief. I actually think it fits the zone quite well
@@shadowcat1606 He definitely wasn't talking about the original, he's on about the live performance called "La Hee", he also did one back in Stormblood for the Yanxia theme too
@@winspyy Oh, i see... yeah, makes sense
the weird loop effect comes from the fact that it's the day time theme for the Rak'tika Greatwood, so it doesn't have to loop perfectly everytime. It also catches you of guard when you go into a cutscene at night and come back out of it when it turned day and the game just suddenly goes: "LA HEE!"
The loop is part of the game, and became famous in the community immediately upon Shadowbringers' release. Everytime you load into the area (including out of a cutscene) the music starts over, so you'll come out of an emotional scene only to be greeted with "LA HEE!" hence, the fan name.
oi just imagine they Put La hee in a place where the story Goes Emotionaly Hard like the saddess part of Shadowbringers
only whenever you want to cries you got laugh instead becausse La hee
Keiko's worked with Soken before, so she knows he's a troll, but probably not what specifically was going to happen.
Soken wasn't allowed to practice this before-hand so he was going into it blind. And of course he not only plays the otomatone, but two of them at the same time while singing.
It was also the next day that we found out he was writing music from the hospital for half a year while recovering from cancer. It was a really emotional announcement and worth a watch.
Soken is hilarious. He does a few weird things in some of his live performances. He did a piano piece once and used a cardboard box that he would kick for sound instead of a bass drum.
Also, for context, this performance of La Hee was made after he entered remission from cancer (which he announced at the end of the same live event)
His Twitter account also has silly things, like when a promotional truck drove past the camera slowly and Soken was scooting after it on what looked like a child's toy car.
La Hee means 'wake up' and when it plays in game its just as the sun is rising. You first hear it in the cutscene when entering the Greatwood for the first time, very memorable.
So if I put Soken on my alarm clock saying "La Hee" it would be lore-friendly?
@@antarath517 idk about 'lore friendly, but if someone did a metal mash-up of Soken's La hee and Chop Suey, I wouldn't say no.
You can blame a random fan Soken met who showed him an Otamatone. Dunno when it happened, but it was before this happened. That fan will forever go down in history because without them and that singular minuscule moment in the grand history we call life, this may have never happened the way it did.
The Spyro treetops level! That hit me right in my nostalgic heart. It does look like that.
The Pianist is Keiko, and she and Soken did "A Long fall" together on piano also in this fanfest video. Soken loves to do this sort of thing at Fanfests. It's so nice when a master musician can , basically, meme himself.
Honestly the funniest part of Soken's "La Hee" performance is that he has to deliberately tank his singing and musical skills because he's too good.
NOW....you know Lahee.
THIS is a delightful track, and truly one of those tracks that just brings smiles to all, in both forms! x3
One of my favourite Soken things is that interview where he describes making the percussion for the Costa Del Sol music out of anything he could find round the office. He didn't have time to go out and buy maracas, so the sound in that track is something like paper clips and mints in an empty plastic noodle cup. He also played the Yanxia music on the otomatone at a previous event, same pianist, same startled expression.
I remember the first time I entered Raktika woods. I still remember what my character was wearing, what I was doing, what I was thinking. It's one of those songs that captures a moment. I love this song. I love the music. I own a house in 14 and the first music on my playlist when entering is Civilization. It's just that amazing.
There is actually a meme dance which the Devs did for another fanfest for the theme of the twinning a long fall. Soken is an absolute meme lord at fanfest. As for why otamatones, you'll have to blame a fan of FFxiv who upon meeting soken at a previous fanfest introduced him to the strange instruments. After that the fan lamented his cursed dealings after that fanfest XD
That's the face when you realize you've sorely misjudged the mad-to-genius balance of your boss.
Someone, good at remember the names of things, tell this man about the music in Radz-at-Han! Most places have a daytime theme and a nighttime theme. oh yeah...That man is precious!
This might get lost in the sea of requests, but my biggest recommendation for an overworld theme from FFXIV would be the Azys Lla Theme ( Order Yet Undeciphered ). It's from a floating complex of advanced technology that's been lost to time, and I feel like the music is really good at reflecting this.
This is one of those song where u just go to the zone just to listen to the music couse its so relaxing.
As for Soken's performance, well, it should explain why most ppl know the song as La Hee eh? such a fun way to do it :)
I WAS WAITING FOR THIS REACTION VIDEO! ITS FINALLY HAPPENING
I was offered an Otamatone last year because I loved this video so much.
You should try “close in the distance” and “In the balance” from ff14. They are from end walker and are amazing!
This was during fanfest 2021 about a good year ago and it was online because of Covid so for a lot of us (including me) this was our very first fanfest. While watching the concert he would just randomly appear and do his thing as our memelord and savior and then he became the absolute legend for this. You better believe all the channels that were watching the performance (RUclips, Twitch, Niconico) were all "??????" and "YOOOOO" at the same time xD He does know the name of the OST since he wrote it but we all know it better by "LaHee". It got memed so much that they added a quests they explained that "LaHee" means "wake up".
Also, what made him even more of a legend was... since we (and by we i mean the players and 99,99% of the development team since only the CEO and YoshiP (director) knew about what was happening and were told not to tell anyone to keep the normalcy) found out during fanfest a bit later that he was battling cancer, the first thing he did when they let him out of the hospital was this.
The performance was so good in its chaotic way that I'm serious about spending money if they make an orchestrion version in the game.
The funny part about the song is that you'll enter the Greatwood with this nice poetic speech about the land and the people who live there, then as soon as the cutscene ends "LA HEE". It happens immediately after several serious cutscenes, and it just makes me snort everytime.
and for story reasons it just never stops happening when you first get there.
Yeah, your reaction here was about everyone else's, no worries. XD Soken is... very unique. There's a video of him scooting after a semi-truck (that they'd commissioned to advertise Endwalker) on a toddler's toy car. We love this man.
Dont forget the night time version is instrumental because I guess people need to sleep
It isn't that much of a deviation simply because 14 has literally had every single genre ever at least once, and you haven't really been sent many world themes, mostly dungeon and battle. And it is supposed to be the language of the civilization that used to live in Rak'tika. La hee means rise up. And yes, this is real he played twin otomatones and sang off key live. The devs of FFXIV are just awesome people. They embrace memes and live to entertain. As for why? He sad he just likes the otomotone.
Soken knows how to sing. What's really impressive is that he's able to deliberately sing badly while also playing those.
This track absolutely BLEW my mind when i heard it the first time. I had been playing the game with Mount music and combat music on and immediately after hearing this track went and switched both of them off. absolutely incredible area music.
Then it gets annoying real quick imo
Yessss! I remember one of your videos a while ago asking about soken and if he played other stuff or had a band and I commented with the link to him performing this live. So glad you got to see it. It was a lot of fun. I know I laughed so hard the first time I saw it, I was in tears. Just the look on the pianist's face and watching Soken Run away.
Yeah so some context for his live performance, Soken did an intentionally weird version of the song as a prank with a purposefully off-key vocal performance and the automatones. Huge shit post during a livestream for Fanfest, the big FFXIV convention. He just showed up, did *this* and left. It was so, SO funny to see this live. I was crying. Her reaction is priceless. She's a professional piano player and one of her first impressions of Masayoshi Soken, the musical genius of FFXIV, was him trolling everyone with this glorious shitpost.
To add a bit more context to the La Hee meme prior to Soken doing this, it just became a common thing people shout in chat when they enter that area (because of the song) specially in larger events like hunt trains (something organized regularly by the community which gathers a lot of people).
There’s also a sidequest which makes you go around and shout La Hee for some reason.
The power of a man to compose a song and then perform it live like that is unbridled
i now want you to imagine a huge lore drop or emotional scene it ends and then " LA HEE!"
Soken is that precious chaos we all need and love!
The fan who introduced the otamatone to Soken had no idea what she'd unleashed. Soken would have an Otamatone moment each Fan Fest since, culminating in this.
See "Masayoshi Soken Plays the Otamatone" for the fateful moment.
This fan is now high in the FFXIV hierarchy, and it wasn't even her intention.
the fact that she can play this song perfectly while being utterly bewildered is god tier talent
You've been hit by!
You've been struck by!
A SMOOTH LA-HEE!
Soken not only composed some of the greatest Final Fantasy music in existence, he also provides vocals for several of the tracks in FFXIV (Rise, for one)
Thats our SOKEN! THATS the master mind behind most of the XIV music youve been reacting to! XD He did another meme ver with the otamatone with the "Yanxia" song at the 2019 tokyo fan fest.
My favorite part of the whole thing is him running off stage, im so glad im not the only one who cracks up at that every time.
The meme this became is such an awesome (comforting? Maybe? Idk, i was way late to this part of msq) Contrast to the quests through this area. Thanks for listening!!
Spoken trolled everybody and it warms my heart every time I see it
Soken gave "Yanxia" the same treatment a few years ago.... It was the first part of the Tsukiyomi music you just reacted to, so you'll get the reference if you look it up!
Soken is a treasure.
The live performance was from the online fanfest last year. I watched this happen live on stream and was smiling and laughing the entire time. He did something similar with the otomatone at a previous fanfest with another overworld theme. Soken is a legend.
Every time you enter the zone the song starts out with La-Hee! So when people load into the area, they generally will shout "La-Hee!, and other people will replay with "La-Hee!". The song itself is just a weird in game meme.
So, for a bit of context, Soken just kinda does this, but this time was special. He did this before revealing on this same event later on that he composed part of the Shadowbringers' expansion soundtrack from the hospital, working while going through chemo while none of the dev team knew, to the surprise of everyone but one person on stage with him, and that he was already in remission by then. The guy's a badass.
The song was in the game from shadowbringers launch in 2019. The lyrics for ffxiv bgm are almost never made public near when it first makes it into the game, so there's a dedicated community of players trying to decipher them, and La Hee became a meme because of it.
The la hee performance was 2 years later, though soken does these otamatone things at every fanfest round and this one was just elevated by the sheer awkwardness of not having a live crowd and Keiko sitting back there not knowing what to do.
Soken is talent incarnate. To think he had the spirit to do this after announcing that he had been battling cancer.
about damn time. been waiting for you to do Civilitations for mooonths =D
"Waited months and months for like two minutes?" Yyyyyyyuuuuuuuup. You know why? It's because you won't forget this, or it will at least be a long time until you do. I've heard many video game songs over the course of my life and La-hee is one of the most memorable. \o/
In which this man compose this beautiful piece and is like "ok but how can I bring it to God levels"
HAHAHAA. How could I not click with that thumbnail 🤣🤣🤣
4:25 That is still a jumpscare. What makes this song so notorious is they simply do not adjust. You'll be in a quiet or solemn or serious cutscene or have a huge lore bomb dropped on you, and the moment you leave the cutscene you are bombarded with LA HEE!
Best part of this is his poor pianist knows him, knows he's crazy, and even SHE was shocked for a moment before re-finding her chill and rolling with it.
Soken regularly does amazing shit like this and then just walks away like nothing happened. Also, he called it La Hee because that's what it's called most of the time. Also, the Otamatone is actually the instrument you heard that sounded like bagpipes. This was a follow-up to the live shitpost he did at the previous FanFest when he used the Otamatone to destroy his Yanxia theme.
mystery, secret and hidden tribes, magic, culture, ancient civilisations, ruins and temples. basically The Rak'tika Greatwood. No matter how annoyed people get at the meme, I'll never get bored of it. so so good. the night theme is the instrumental version which is much tamer. and then ofc theres Soken taking the stage at the Fan Festival. Watching it broadcast live, probably a little drunk with friends on discord, we were all in tears from laughter. definitely a memorable night.
This is the best video I've ever seen in my entire life.
THANK YOU!
"How do I describe this music?"
La Hee, that's it, that's all you need. You say that to anyone and they'll know exactly what kinda music you're talking about.
The vocals are just gibberish and come from a sample library. If you purchase Era II Vocal Codex for 160€ then you too can use the original "Lahee" lyrics in your music! :D
*Sees the title*
Me: oh boy, the meme is here, this going to be special.
Civilizations is one of my morning alarms.
Yeap that's our Soken. Gets up on stage. Shitposts his own music. Doesn't elaborate. Runs away. Absolute legend.
The actual song is in a made up language. Doesn't even have a translation (aside from "la hee" being later said to mean "good morning" or something), just exists to sound like... something.
it was something to watch this live. because they just go from serious live renditions of various songs and then LA HEE happens. gotta love Soken and the team for keeping up with the community's memes.
There's so many great tracks in FFXIV. Uematsu and Soken are such geniuses and masters of so many different styles. Here's some more of the greatest tracks:
A Realm Reborn: Answers (base game main theme), I Am The Sea (Limsa Lominsa day bgm), Under the Weight (Titan boss final phase bgm), Oblivion (Shiva boss final phase bgm), Good King Moogle Mog XII (said boss bgm), Out of the Labyrinth (Syrcus Tower raid non-combat bgm), Battle on the Big Bridge (Gilgamesh boss bgm)
Heavensward: Dragonsong (expansion cutscene bgm), The Mushroomery (Matoya's Cave bgm), Heroes (Knights of the Round boss bgm), Locus (Alexander boss bgm), Metal: Brute Justice Mode (Brute Justice boss bgm), Rise (Alexander final boss bgm)
Stormblood: The Measure of Our Reach (Garlemald dominion version of Ala Mhigo national anthem), Wayward Daughter (Tsukiyomi boss bgm), eScape (Omega boss bgm)
Shadowbringers: Tomorrow and Tomorrow (expansion cutscene bgm), A Long Fall (The Twinning dungeon bgm), To The Edge (Warrior of Light boss bgm), Who Brings Shadow (Hades boss bgm), What Angel Wakes Me (Titania boss bgm)
Endwalker: Footfalls (expansion main theme), Flow (expansion cutscene bgm), Close in the Distance (Ultima Thule area bgm), With Hearts Aligned (Endsinger boss final phase bgm)
Perhaps the most important of these is A Long Fall, because it was such a jam fans made a bunch of meme dancing videos with it. The most widely known of those is one with the Double Dream Feet meme dancing to it, and that one became so popular that it even became _part of the official choreography_ for the song. The Primals (the official in-house band that makes most of the music for the game, and performs much of it at live events) dance the Double Dream Feet at 2:16 in their official music video. The devs even had four guys dress up in the same outfit as the guy in the original meme video (except with shirt colors changed to match the roles in-game: blue for a tank, green for a healer, and two red for dps) and dance it at the Fanfest 2021 live event.
This man defeated cancer while still writing music fulltime, he deserves to do whatever shit he wants on stage
He did the another theme from the Stormblood expansion the year before, and if I recall right, Keiko (an absolute wonder) had a similar look where she had to try and remain professional. He's a massive memelord, and to think he was fresh out the hospital from cancer at this digital fanfest, too.
The run off the stage gets me everytime, I love it lol
It is world music. Where the player is flying through exactly. I rarely don't get sick of world music, no matter how good the song is, but I cracked it every time I walked around that forest.
I was d y i n g when i saw la-hee for the first time. I just had finished ShB and it was such a power move from Soken, love the guy.
this is why
Soken is my favorite dude ever he just makes amazing music then goes on stage and dose this lol he must be protected lol
la HEEEEEE *Pianist's soul leaves body.*
One other funfact about the Song is that the Lyrics arebasicaly just Giblish.
In one Live Letter where questions of the Fans got Answered one was about what Language the Lyrics were sung in where Songen clearly said he just took sounds that sound nice together wich in turn shocked YoshiP who till that point thought it was French or something
If I recall correctly the language in this song is a made up "forest spirit" language that is supposed to imply the spirits of the forest greeting you as you explore. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere but I may be wrong.
My favorite zone music, from the same expansion actually, is Sands of Amber. Beautiful ambience.
We waited for it, and it was absolutely worth it.
And remember Soken, this absolute legend is the guy who was writing music from a hospital bed cause he is that dedicated
I'm glad you listed to the Civilizations first... LaHee just doesn't hit the same without that context!
The vocals in the track were actually taken from a sample library. Soken cleverly used those vocal samples in his composition. He also used the same library to implement vocals in another track in FFXIV. Or rather, it's used as a recurring motif in a certain zone in FFXIV.
I love that THIS is the man who wrote La hee/Civilizations 10/10
YESS THE ONE I WAS WAITING FOR!! and yes i lockcapped it because thats how much i was waiting for it xD
Keiko’s face sends me every fricken time.
That loop a bit weird when you listen to the song by itself but in game when the song stops you get to hear just the forest ambience and foley for a few seconds and it's great.
Everyone knows Soken is a Big Fan of Otamatone's on Fanfest he often Plays with them. It became a running Gag. Have one signed by Soken from 2019's Fanfest in Paris.
Also as for some Clearification. He perform "La-Hee" on the second Day of Fanfest 2021 and indtantly became a Meme. At the third Day at the Ending Panel he announced his Cancer Diagnosis in front of all the Staff Members and of course in the Livestream. And aside of Yoshi-P and the Square CEO nobody was aware of it and he still wrote Songs like To the Edge while laying in a Hospital Bed.