whoah man I've never heard of this. That sounds awesome! Must have been a great night.
Video Games Live!
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 On 07/17/2013 at 03:12 PM by daftman See More From This User » |
Saturday night my wife and I finally got to experience something that I've been following from afar for years: Video Games Live! For those who don't know, VGL is "an immersive event created by the game industry featuring the best game music performed by top orchestras and choirs combined with synchronized lighting, video, live action and audience interactivity." We got to see it at a performing arts center at Wolf Trap National Park in northern Virginia. Basically, it was a state-of-the-art concert hall without walls. Pretty cool. And the featured orchestra was the National Symphony Orchestra, which is easily one of the best in the world!
Video Games Live was co-created (with composer Jack Wall) and is still hosted, more than ten years after its first show, by legendary game composer Tommy Tallarico. His credits include Earthworm Jim and Advent Rising and he currently holds the Guinness Book world record for working on more game soundtracks than any other person. Quite a few of the songs featured electric guitar, like the opening Castlevania medley, and Tommy plays them all himself. And he's good. Some of the songs are what you'd expect, like a Mario medley and Liberi Fatali from FFVIII, but there was also music from Shadow of the Colossus, Skyrim, and Donkey Kong Country, to name a few, and it was all top notch. It really was quite a varied set list. Street Fighter II, Pokemon (I think my wife might have squealed when they started that one), Earthworm Jim, Tetris (with Russian choir and soloists), the list goes on.
This is not the performance we went to but it gives you an idea of what it's like
The visual part was cool too. The second song they played was the opening cinematic to World of WarCraft: Cataclysm. The orchestra played the music as the cinematic played on the big screen. Really cool. Most pieces were accompanied by footage of gameplay or sometimes static images, like the Zelda medley which featured only fan art (there is some awesome fan art out there, let me tell you). It was always fitting and well done. Really made me want to play Journey after seeing the game in motion as the orchestra was conducted by the game's composer, Austin Wintory (that's the second time I've seen him in person; first time was at the Gamer Symphony Orchestra concert in DC last year).
The coolest moments of the night came from the audience participation though. Tommy picked four volunteers from the audience to play Super Smash Bros. Melee on the big screen while the orchestra played the Opening Theme from Brawl. That was cool, especially because two of the fighters found themselves in sudden death at the end! But the Guitar Hero bit was awesome. They had a competition before the show started with whoever wanted to walk up and play GH2. They called the player with the highest score up on stage and had him play "The Pretender" by the Foo Fighters with the orchestra and Tommy (he sang too). If the guy (an Asian chap named Henry) could get to 450,000 points on Hard, he'd win a prize. But Henry 1upped them by saying real men played on Expert...so they changed it to Expert for him! It was so intense, oh my word. The notes were flying thick and fast and by the end we were all on our feet cheering. And he did it! Over 450,000 points. It was crazy. He hit 98% of all the notes!
That's Tommy Tallarico there in midair. He's basically a rockstar.
After the final piece (Street Fighter II) we all just kept clapping and cheering till they came back out for an encore and played a medley from Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. Tommy said those two games get requested more than any other. It was beautiful. After that we had a group sing-along with "Still Alive" from Portal. Awesome way to end the night 
My wife and I really wanted to stay for the meet and greet afterwards but the line was super long and didn't budge in the 20 min we stood there, so we left because we had a two hour drive ahead of us to get home (and overnight construction actually made that longer). All in all I had a blast. I've only been able to scratch the surface of what the experience is like for you. You really have to be there yourself. My wife and I are already planning to go again, next year hopefully.
And this time we'll meet Tommy Tallarico.
(My wife's blog has a couple pics and video she took on her phone of the song from Journey, in case you're interested.)
But hey, I was looking through past shows just now and it looks like they've gone to Milwaukee a couple times before, so there's hope, if not in the immediate future lol. And I'm sure your wife would like it. You appreciate it the most if you're a gamer, of course, but anybody could enjoy it simply as good music.
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