Video Game Music + Orchestra = Sublime Entertainment!

by Brig Larsen - 2008/04/08 7:13pm

Videogame music has a deep and rich history. Many gamers tie their earliest memories of gaming to the music that played in the background. This writer is one of them. I have many wonderful memories of game music that go way back to my days playing the original Nintendo. I can still remember most of the themes from my favorite games on the NES and the chances are you do too. Who could ever really forget that classic Mario tune? But how would you feel if you heard this music played by an orchestra? Would it bring a tear to your eye? What if you heard the moving sounds of Final Fantasy brought to life for you by 100 men and women live on their classical instruments? Would you just keel over and die from happiness? Well I have news my friends, you can go cry and die if you would like. All thanks to Video Games Live.

Video Games Live is a fairly new concert series that was created by Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall, two of the premiere music composers in the United States of America. Tallarico has a huge number of titles to his credit, some of the most famous include the Metroid Prime series and the Earthworm Jim series. Jack Wall also has a huge number of games to his credit including Mass Effect and Jade Empire. These two composers both have a great love of their music and the music of videogames in general. They both also have a desire to bring this wonderful music to a much wider audience. Thus they decided to form Video Games Live and take the music to the world. With the cooperation of the other composers the two went to work creating orchestrated versions of all the music and prepared it for a world tour. They also contacted all the companies whose music they would be performing and obtained rights to use footage from their games in sync with the music during concerts.

The two have gone above and beyond that however. They wanted to integrate the entire video game experience into their concert series. With the cooperation of video game producers the team set up to have video game demos of upcoming titles available for play before and after the show. Along with this the duo wanted to make classic video games like Space Invaders, Frogger, and Centipede available to a new generation of gamers. So in addition to demos of newer games, the show would have arcade cabinets available to play these great games. Last of all, to complete the experience they obtained sponsors in order to hold contests before and during the show.

On top of all that they have even more for the extreme fans. We are all familiar with Cosplay and the popularity it has gained in recent years. The creators decided to embrace even this aspect of their shows. The show proudly hosts a Cosplay competition with every show they perform even including prizes for the winners. While not a necessary for the show, it does add just a bit of extra fan service for those that attend.

So they've done all this? But is the concert really worth attending? Lucky for you readers I recently had a chance to attend the show when it was performed locally and I have the answer. The answer is absolutely yes!

Video Games Live is an absolute must attend for any gamer, that is if you love music. The entire show was one giant masterpiece. I loved the entire experience. I'd like to take a moment and let you know what my favorite parts were and let you know what you can expect.

The show started off with an introduction like I would never have expected. Before the first piece of music played, before the director took the stage, a familiar character phoned in. Believe it or not the “man” to introduce the show was none other than Solid Snake! The official voice actor phoned in via classic codec call. It was both hilarious and the perfect way to introduce the show. After a short introduction of the show by the creators we were immediately treated to wonderful music of the Metal Gear Solid series. It was a powerful thing to listen to such powerful music played by an orchestra while footage from the past games and upcoming games played on the screens. To add even more humor to the event, and enjoyment for fans of the series especially, they had a man dressed as a guard for the series come on stage searching for intruders. Before long a box walks onto the stage, clearly a throwback to our good friend Snake. While completely unnecessary for the show it really added a lot of fun to the segment.

Believe it or not one of my absolute favorite segments of the show was a compilation of music from arcade games. I'd played almost all the games included in the segment and it was an absolute delight to hear that music resurrected by an orchestra. Part of this amazing experience is how well the music was synced to the footage. For instance part of the segment was based on Donkey Kong and when he jumped across the level breaking it up the drums pounded exactly in time with the action. It was hilarious and excellent at the same time.

One of the powers an orchestra has is to pull the emotional heartstrings of its audience. Just that happened to me when they started into the Kingdom Hearts segment. It was extremely powerful to hear the orchestrated theme played live and I'll admit that it almost made me cry. It was powerfully done and possibly the best performance of any piece of music that I have ever heard.

I don't want to go on forever, but I really could. Not all of the classics were covered but they could only do so much in a two hour show. The segments I haven't mentioned yet included Mario, Legend of Zelda, Halo, Final Fantasy and others. Also there were several interactive segments where audience members were invited on stage to play a classic arcade game while the orchestra played the music to what he played. This really showed the skill of the orchestra because every time the player would die, the music would immeadiately stop the music and start over just like in the actual game. To put it shortly every last section was excellent. It was superb! Anybody who is into videogame music in the slightest would enjoy the show. Don't expect to hear all your favorites, but chances are even if you aren't an uber fan of the games, you'll love the music.

In fact even if you aren't a fan of games there is something for everyone. While at the show I was sitting next to a person that I would judge was in their mid sixties. He was there as he had season tickets to the shows performed by the local symphony and had no idea what he would be getting into. As the show went on though I could tell he was enjoying himself, albeit we wasn't screaming like the rest of the crowd. As I walked out I asked him what he thought and he said, “I'm gonna have to buy a few new CD's!”

As for me, I couldn't be happier. It was the best live music show that I've ever seen and if I were to give it some rating it would easily be a 5/5!

Once again, the show was amazing! Though the cost may vary to where you live, it's guaranteed to be worth it. Check out www.videogameslive.com for images, videos, show dates and locations. I'm telling you, you will be happy that you did.

The Dark Messenger: I went to VGL last year and was pretty damn awesome. When they played MGS theme they actually brought out a box and then a guard with a question mark above his head. VG Pianist was also a brilliant performer and one experience I will remember.

Dave: Great article Brig, coming from Final Fantasy backgrounds, I definitely appreciate the music in some games.

Scather: After the great experience that I had. I want everyone to go see it. It's an amazing show, worth every penny. Plus everyone should take someone that knows nothing about games and see what they think. It all about spreading the music. Thanks for the kind words as well.

PStars: Fantastic article Brig, it really makes you want to go and see the show, which im guessing, was a big part of your article. Im hoping to go see it at the Apollo in London when it gets to the UK later this year, thanks for the feature.