Monday, 20 July 2009

• Video Games Live

  
  

  
  We just came back from Video Games Live, a video game music concert at Heinz Hall. It was pretty awesome. We went early because the site had said there would be activities beforehand. We ogled the cosplayers (there was a contest) and watched as people competed in Guitar Hero. At least one third of the cosplayers were dressed up as characters from Zelda. There were like four Links and three Zeldas. Ultimately, Kratos won.
  
  The crowd was pretty interesting. A lot of them unfortunately fit the negative stereotype associated with gamers: socially awkward, smelly, and/or overweight, either casually dressed or looking uncomfortable in more formal wear. Then there were people you expect to see at symphonies, older couples in formal attire with maybe a grandchild in tow. Our seats happened to be in between people of the former category and people of the latter category. The three or four guys right behind us were incredibly obnoxious. I get it, you're excited that your subculture is being displayed at a mainstream culture venue, it is cool. That doesn't mean you have to cheer constantly and talk loudly about how awesome this is. You don't have to say, "OH I KNOW THIS ONE" every time a song starts and then alternately hum loudly and off tune or grunt in pleasure. It's a VIDEO GAME MUSIC CONCERT! You're going to know these songs! So shut up! The family to the right of us was a granny who looked completely out of place, a mother, and her young son who was very bored. The music they played at the beginning was pretty old school, probably too old school for the kid.
  
  One surprise during the concert was when Martin Leung came out to play. He's the guy who played the Mario theme song while blindfolded --- huge Internet phenomenon. At first, he played a Nobuo Uematsu medley. Then he replicated his blindfolded Mario playing. This part was funny. The host blindfolded Martin with a Terrible Towel and the entire audience started cheering, "LET'S GO STEELERS!" Good old Pittsburgh.
  

  In the first act, they had a girl come up to play Space Invaders while the orchestra reacted to the moves in real time. The orchestra was awesome, and so was the technology -- they tracked the girl as she walked back and forth across the stage! Too bad the girl was pretty bad and died fairly quickly.
  
  At one point in the second act, they had the guy who won the Guitar Hero competition go up to play Guitar Hero on stage. The host told him that if he got over 200,000 points on hard on "Sweet Emotion" in Guitar Hero Aerosmith, he would win...something. I didn't catch it. Anyway, the guy was too cocky and said he would do it on Expert. Bad move. He started out strong, but halfway through the song he started messing up quite a lot and he ultimately lost.
  
  All in all, the concert was awesome. It was quite a different atmosphere from what you'd expect going to a regular symphony. The host engaged the audience often. At one point, he even had all of us singing the Mario theme a cappella! It sounded terrible but it was funny. My favorite song was probably the Chrono Cross song Time's Scar. It sounded wonderful coming from an orchestra.
  
  If Video Games Live ever comes to your town, and you are a gamer, you definitely should consider going.

  Do you think this is a way to reach non-gamers, or a call out to those who know and love these melodies?
  

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