Continuing on from last month’s post on the Tomb Raider Suite, there was more to talk about.

Nathan and I had been talking in the evening once the fans had obtained their autographs and answers, followed by a meet up the next morning.

Not long after I received that, I spotted Nathan, alongside some fans. It was almost as if it was a rock musician with his followers.

He was still beaming that smile from ear to ear.

Once we had gotten our drinks, we started to just digest what had happened the previous night.

When suddenly:

‘Shit, that’s Shelley (Blond) calling, hold on.’

‘It’s alright, was just about her bag.’

‘Her bag?’

‘Yeah, she left it at the Apollo, I have it at my Hotel and she wants to pick it up!’

The group who were with him, it turned out they were outside, wondering where to go for breakfast, and they spotted Nathan.

I asked him how he was feeling.

‘I feel great still Daryl. I personally, made a financial loss on the concert, but with the three standing ovations and all the positive feedback, it was worth it.’

With the first concert over with, I mentioned with those factors, this is the start in a sense. It gave awareness and surely gave faith in the investors at U-Live.

‘Sure. After the concert I spoke to one of them and they want to speak about the potential of more in the new year. At the end of the day, they weren’t watching the concert, it was more the audience. How they were reacting, how they were responding to every song. But with three standing ovations it’s hard to see a world tour not occur.’

It’s known that I love vinyls. With mentions of an album, I had to ask if there were any plans for that.

‘Yeah, three companies are bidding for that. One in the UK, one in America, one in Poland.‘

With the concert and many mentions about the album, I asked just how and when this all started.

‘We had a 3 pronged attack when we presented the business plan to Square Enix.

1. The Album recorded using a live orchestra at Abbey Road.

2. A Live Concert.

3. A Documentary Feature Film about the remaking of the TR Music.

For so long I wanted it to happen, ever since Tomb Raider II, and with the 20th anniversary it became a reality.’

So where do we go from here? The concert is a clear success, what now for 2017?

‘I’ve got the licence from Square Enix to exploit the original soundtrack from the games as I see fit. Now that I’ve used the music for an event, I have that licence for seven years. So now it’s the album. At the moment I am focusing on ‘The Tomb Raider Suite’, but I’m also considering releasing the original synthesised versions as they are in the actual game.’

This then moved onto the album. Will it be a standard release or will there be an orchestra to record it?

‘I want an orchestra to record ‘The Tomb Raider Suite’ first. It costs forty-five thousand for a full orchestra to record it alone. So the plan for that is likely to be a Kickstarter. Interestingly the Recordings Manager from the London Symphony Orchestra had listened to the tracks I put up on Soundcloud before the concert and got in touch, wanting to work with me.’

At this point we had looked at one another and thought of the London Symphony Orchestra playing the Suite. We both laughed in disbelief and wondered what could be done and just how good it would sound.

A deluxe album of all the tracks from the concert. Plus the originals. It’s all possible.

We even thought that a twentieth anniversary has only been for the first game in a sense. 2017 is the 20th anniversary for Tomb Raider II, and in 2018, Tomb Raider III.

There’s a lot of possibilities, and all of them are being considered.

‘The plan for the album is likely to be a Kickstarter. We hope to announce it in February, launch in March for one month, and if all works out we release the album in July.’

‘I know Peter (Connelly) wants to do his own suite of 4, 5 and 6, but I think Crystal/Square Enix want him to wait until I’ve done what I wanted to do first.’

But what of this ‘world tour’?

‘Before I did my video post on social media, we hadn’t had much response from the planned PR campaign. Unless you were on Facebook or Twitter, there was a slim chance you’d hear anything about the concert. But after that, the fans came through, and for that I’m incredibly grateful.’

‘At the signing, we were aware of the queue outside, and all three of us were signing as fast as we could, but one of the organisers asked us to go faster, which was impossible! I did manage to meet many of the fans though which was great. One lady said that after listening to my music on Tomb Raider, she decided to study music and was now a successful Music Producer! It’s humbling to hear things like that.

Looking back at the whole day, I asked Nathan how the rehearsal went and how he felt about the final performance.

‘The Rehearsal was scary, even shocking at times. We had enough time to play each track twice, some of them only once. I wasn’t confident about going into the show with such little rehearsal time but in the actual performance, our conductor Robert [Ziegler] pulled it all together and it all worked out. I don’t know how he did it! I thought it sounded amazing.’

But if a world tour was to occur, would Shelley go too?

‘I sincerely hope so, I really enjoy working with Shelley, but if she is unable to attend some of the performances , there is a possibility we could have someone else in her place for the times when she’s unavailable – Judith Gibbins for example, or even Jonell Elliot from 4, 5 and 6.’

But, with rumours of the third reboot game in development with the title, ‘Shadow of the Tomb Raider‘, I wondered if there was any chance of Nathan composing another game again. With the success of the night before, surely Square Enix couldn’t ignore the potential of this and future concerts.

‘With Meagan being the community manager at Crystal, we have spoken of there being a possibility of me scoring the fourth game. It could not only attract new fans, but old fans who still haven’t played the new games, but with my music.’

Of what was going to be a chat for only a half hour, it turned into around three hours. It was almost as if we had been friends for years. Chatting away, no awkwardness. We had a great laugh, and what was answered above, was only a fraction of what we spoke of.

With the new year now concluded, it’s going to be a year where we’ll be seeing many of Nathan’s plans come to fruition, or at the very least, announced.

Prepare for an official site, the Kickstarter, then, the world tour and albums. And I’ll be around for all of it.

It’s a good time to be a Tomb Raider fan once again.