Video Games Live
 

Has anyone else heard about this? It's basically a huge concert orchestra with a huge ass video screen showing games. Here's the main site.

JameO and I are going to the show on Friday. It's gonna be totally bad-ass. Here's a list of some stuff that's they're going to be playing...

Halo, Mario, Zelda, Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Sonic, Everquest, God of War, Medal of Honor, Myst, Tron (??) and there's going to be an arcade medley described as featuring everything from Pong to Donkey Kong.

I'm totally hyped for this. It's going to be f*cking sweet!

I went to "Play!" when it came through here, it seemed to largely feature the same sort of stuff, as well as playing host to most of the composers featured...

It was a great show. If VGL is anything like it then you're in for a treat. But I should note that "Play!" still ahs one show left in Toronto on the 30th of September.

Oh really? I think I may have to check that out. Apparently this show plays host to a lot of the composers as well. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Video Game Pianist. That guy is aweomse.

The Philadelphia one was already performed, so I'll try and catch the New York one. It's only a train ride away. Looks like it's gonna be sick as hell.

I've got tickets to the hollywood bowl performance next month. I will totally let you know how that goes.

Me and a bunch of gamers sat on his stage and listened to him for a good hour at E3. The guy is fu*king amazing. After that, I hosted an interview with him. I'll post it later if I can get the damn DV player to work.

Oh, and VGLive kicks Play! in the balls. Tommy Tallarico produces Video Games Live, and they do everything right. The music is synched up to the games on screen, they have a large balance of material to suit all tastes, they (mostly) lay off the Final Fantasy (it has it's own damn show and it very overrated musically, though that dosen't me it isn't good, just overrated), and they have many VG composers at the show you can just walk up and talk to, and they pay equal respect to American, Japanese, and European composers. They have lazer lights and special effects, and at the end, they invite a member of the audience up to the stage to play a classic video game on the big screen (75 feet wide. Mario's hand is as big as your head), while the orchestra actually performs the music and sound effects in synch with the game. It's fu*king amazing. I'd post links to some videos, but it would spoil it since you're going. I assure you, you're in for a treat. I've talked to Tommy several times about it, and they guy knows what he's doing.

I'll be attending the next one in Dallas. It'll cost a goddamn fortune for me to get down there, but what the hell. While I'm in the area, I should take the opportuinity to visit Michi heavenly6/GK too :D

At Massey Hall in Toronto?

That's the one.

You wouldn't happen to know if there are any tickets left, would you? :D

I know for a fact that there are some remaining. At least there were on..Monday? Ticketmaster.ca my friend. Are you planning on flying down for the show or something, or are you in town? :lol:

I just just arrived here in Toronto yesterday, and I'm very keen on seeing this Video Games Live concert...As well as sampling the many goodies to be found at the Comic Book Expo this weekend. :)

Video Games Live is also priced considerably cheaper than that Play! - A Video Game Symphony, and everything about it -- from the prospect of laser, video screens and effects, to the publicity side of things -- is far more appealing than that Play! crap.

And what the Hell is up with Play's claim that they're, quote, "The first and only world tour featuring visuals with live music from video games perfomed by full orchestra and choir"? That's bullsh*t! Check out this article from the Calgary Sun to read more about the fued between the two shows.

THIS MAKES HANNAH HATE BEING BROKE.


*sob*

The show, in all honesty, wasn't that great. Besides the fact that there was just a ton of stuff I didn't care for, the majority of the great stuff was completely rushed. The fact that they played Final Fantasy for well over 10 minutes, as well as overplayed stuff like EQ2, Tron and crap no one cares about like BG&E and Advent Rising, they reduced Mario to 3 basic themes. The main theme, underground and underwater. Zelda was pretty much the same, with just a couple varying degrees of the main theme.

My enjoyment would have probably been a little better if the seats weren't completely awful. It was kind of cool to whip out your DS, select download play and see a bunch of different games pop up.

I'm really bummed to hear that.

Play seems like it probably kept it closer to gaming mainstays and stuff that most people would be familiar with. There were a few songs from games that I'd never heard/played but most of the stuff they performed hit home in some way. I mean, if you were expecting a show of mostly Mario and Zelda, I don't think anyone's gonna offer that. They played one peice of several Mario themes from several games (and Koji Kondo played a song on the Piano from NSMB), and it was good, impressive, all encompassing... but it didn't seem overpowering to the rest of the show. Zelda was they same way. Final Fantasy had the most songs in the show out of any game, but obviously I wasn't bothered by that. If I recall correctly they plaaaaayed....6 FF songs (not including the second time they played One Winged Angel). But all the stuff inbetween was fantastic as well, and as I said before, a medley from Sonic 1 was one of the highlights of the evening for me.

I never expected it to be a Mario and Zelda show. I expected them to show actually pay tribute to them better than they did. I mean, 3 of the Mario themes, all from SMB and it lasted a total of about 3 minutes. Not what I expected. Especially considering they played sh*t from Advent Rising for over 10 minutes, showing the games story from beginning to end.

Well, I guess you just can't please everyone.

How big was the crowd? In general, did people seem to like it?

The crowd was pretty huge. Like I said, parts went over well, other stuff fell totally flat. The stuff I mentioned, Tron, Advent Rising, BG&E, EQ2, all of that fell totally flat and got little to no response until the very end when everyone clapped out of respect. Stuff like MGS (Which I enjoyed. I like the music, not the "game"), Mario, Zelda, the arcade stuff, Sonic, Halo. Even God of War, which is one of my favourite games this gen, got little to no response.

The videogame pianist easily got the best response. He played a FF medley, which I got almost nothing out of until he started playing Sephiroth's theme, for which I cheered and everyone else kind of sat there. Luckily they brought him back out and he played everything from EWJ to Tetris and even one of the SMW themes. He was the best part, a concert totally for him would have gone over better.

The ending was really good. They ended with Halo, which started off not so well, thanks to what seemed to be a hefty amount of Nintendo fanboys in front of us, who booed everything that wasn't Nintendo related. After it really got going though everyone was cheering. A bunch of them had probably never even heard how great the Halo score actually is.

Forgot to mention that at the beginning there was a costume contest. Easily the best entrant was a dude in an upside down box, Solid Snake style. As soon as he came out everyone started laughing and cheering. When they called his name to get his applause the place exploded and he threw the box off. He had a PERFECT Snake costume. The dude even looked like Snake.

Yeah, I don't like the way they only play the "classic" Mario themes. The songs are WAAAAAY overused in concerts. There are literally hunderds of other choices that would be FAR better, but all concerts seem to like to stick to the standards, which annoys me. Give me "Dire Dire Docks" from SM64, or "Beware the Forest Mushrooms" from SMRPG. Variety is everything. The "Mario Overworld" theme has been done to death. I've always wanted to hear the SMB3 score orchestrated, or how about the Castle theme from Mario World? There's a lot more to choose from than those same three songs.

And yeah, the video game pianist rules hardcore. He should put out a CD.


Oh yeah, and Final Fantasy music is TOO DAMN OVERRATED. Thank you.