Concerts For Geeks

Holy crap, that was FUN.

Last night we went to “Video Games Live” a big concert that performs selected tunes from games both past and present. We’d previously been to a much more modest performance in Singapore put out by an Australian group, but this one was epic in scope.

It also helped that this was a North American audience, not a subdued Southeast Asian one, so the house nearly came down when One Winged Angel, aka, “The Final Fantasy VII villain theme” started up as an encore and screaming and cheering went beyond all reason. Of particular note was the amazing 21st century way they audience clamored for said encore; waving their Nintendo DSes, PSPs, and cellular phones in the air, as a post-modern take on the traditional waving of lighters.

I have to admit, I enjoyed this. A LOT. This is probably the only time you will ever have kids willingly pay money to attend a concert performed by classical musicians. I actually got chills down my spine hearing some of these tunes roaring out of the accomplished ministrations of some Toronto Symphony Orchestra alumni. God of War was as bad-ass/majestic as ever, but the show-stopper for me would have to be the theme for Metal Gear Solid. That’s always been an incredibly powerful piece of music, and with a full orchestra and choir blasting it out into Massey Hall was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. It helped immensely that for this younger, ADD-plagued audience, they had a freakin’ huge screen that showed snippets of game play from the games that the music originated from (except for Squenix games, because for some reason, Squenix forbade the use of game imagery). It also helped that they it wasn’t a pure performance of music. Tommy Tallarico, himself a game composer, mixed it up with things like gaming face-offs from people randomly picked from the audience, as well as the inevitable cos-play “cheer for your favorite” selection process.

For a performance that was done almost entirely by a traditional orchestra and choir, they sure managed to keep the whole night ridiculously geeky and hip…