Video Games Live - The Concert

[esquire]

I decided to go to the website for a local concert venue to see what they have in store this summer, and lo and behold I come across a concert for "Video Games Live" on August 28, with no other information. For you Michigan DPers the concert is at DTE Energy Music Theater f/k/a Pine Knob Music Theater, if you are interested.

I did a quick google search and find this:

http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=home

Announced Game Titles in Video Games Live for the 2005 concert tour:

Mario™, Zelda®, Halo®, Metal Gear Solid®, Warcraft®, Myst®, Castlevania®, Medal of Honor™, Sonic™, Tron, Tomb Raider®, Advent Rising, Headhunter, Beyond Good & Evil™, Splinter Cell®, Ghost Recon™, Rainbow Six®, EverQuest® II and a special retro arcade segment that goes from Pong® to Donkey Kong®!

I know as gamers here at DP that there will interest in something like this, but I am not so sure it will warrant enough interest locally. It looks like this is their first tour. Tommy Tallarico is an executive producer, along with Jack Wall.

Ticket sales dates are "TBD" - to be determined, which leads me to believe that they are not going on sale til they see if the other concerts nationally are a hit. It looks like the first one is July 6 at the Hollywood Bowl. There is also an August 11th concert in Atlanta, Georgia at Chastain Park.

Is anyone going to the July 6 concert? Any Michigan DPers plan on going to the August 26 concert? I'm wondering if this is going to be successful. What are your thoughts?

[calthaer]

This is going to be a big thread lich here, but I figured I'd use an existing topic rather than create a new one.

I just went to the VGL concert held in D.C. last night (6/29/07) - so I saw this tour for the first time. I would be interested in hearing other peoples' thoughts, to be honest; I'll share mine, and hopefully we can maybe compare notes.

Overall score: above average (barely). I think I am probably being a little generous with this rating.

Play-by-play:

Concert started with retro-arcade medley and accompanying video. This was decent. Jack Wall (composer for Myst III) was the conductor.

Tommy Tallarico got on stage and introduced the concert. He's jazzed and tries to act like a rock star, then says that video games are serious "art" and some people say video games + politics don't mix; we're going to prove them wrong tonight, welcome to our nation's capital, blah blah.

I'm a little fuzzy on the exact order of the pieces they performed, but I'll try to put things in order.

They did Metal Gear Solid with a video intro by Hideo Kojima. A montage of video from cutscenes of MGS 1-3 was played while the music was going on. This piece was really well done and exciting to listen to - HIGHLY enjoyable. This is the one piece of the night that I would, without hesitation, give an A+ grade to. I've never played anything but MGS1, but I heard themes from MGS2 and 3 that were quite good.

After this, I think they did the first of their two "competitions" - this kid had to "play" space invaders by running back and forth across the stage (to act as the shooter) and he had to clear the first level in 2 minutes. The orchestra played music in tandem with the game. Kind of fun and entertaining; the kid lost because he doesn't know how to play the game. Tallarico called advice to him while he was playing. He got a prize, though, which djpretzel from OCRemix (whom I was way more interested in hearing talk than Tallarico) gave to him. I don't know if I can "grade" this; it was just sort of...there.

To round out the first act (before the intermission), they then did Medal of Honor, Myst, God of War, a Zelda medley, and a Warcraft medley.

-Medal of Honor had no footage from the game; just WWII footage. I have never played the game, so my assessment of the music is: just typical soundtrack stuff; nothing special. Solidly in the "average-to-below-average" range, especially with no game footage. I'd give it a C- overall.

-God of War is another game I have not played (so sue me), and they DID have game footage of this along with an intro from the composer or designer (not sure which). The game footage looked really impressive, but the music? So-so. Kind of "generifight" or "generiquest" music - it was epic-sounding without having a memorable melody. I remember it being loud, with lots of crashes and booms and crap like that, but I couldn't hum it for the life of me - even a minute or two after I heard it. This one gets a C+, but maybe the game footage would bring it to a B-. Maybe.

-The Zelda medley was awesome but short. I have heard the arrangement before - I can't remember if it was on the "Smashing...Live!" CD that came as a promo with Nintendo Power, but it might be. Video montage of Zelda games, with a heavy emphasis on Twilight Princess. Gets a solid A or A- in my book.

-Myst medley (heavy on the Myst III, which is no surprise, since Jack Wall was the composer). This was excellent, with montage from the series. Very little Riven music, and only a little bit from the first game...but overall it was impressive and well-done. Solid A.

-Warcraft medley: I was very surprised at how sub-par this was. The video montage was of World of Warcraft and Warcraft III cutscenes. I have never played WoW but enjoyed WC3 a lot. The music itself was really generic fantasy / quest stuff - I recognized a little bit of a Warcraft III theme from there, but not much. I have the soundtrack for Warcraft III and really like it, but this had little (if any) discernible melody that I could latch on to and enjoy - I didn't hear much WC3 at all. Very forgettable music. This one gets a B- for sure, which I'm kind of amazed at. Blizzard usually does their stuff well.


In the second act: Civilization IV, Final Fantasy piano medley, Super Mario Bros, Tron, Advent Rising, Halo, Kingdom Hearts, and an encore of One-Winged Angel from FF7.

-They started out the second act with a "Frogger" bit. Two guys came up and took turns playing for the high score. The second guy blew the first away and took home the prize of a laptop. This was fun; pretty cool. The audience was definitely into it.

-Civ IV I have never played, but this one was good and DID have a memorable melody. I can still remember this tune right now while I'm typing. Video montage included that was impressive. This performance was well-done overall and very enjoyable, although some of the singers who did the vocals were definitely sub-par and almost ruined it with their lack of volume control and coordination with the rest of the orchestra (this one guy singing was OFF). I'd give this an A-.

-Kingdom Hearts - forgettable. Tallarico explains (he introduces each piece) that Square won't let them show any footage from their games - but Disney does, so they show a montage of scenes of Disney characters from the movies. The music is kind of bland and is more forgettable "meh" sountracky stuff - I wouldn't put this soundtrack on my iPod, even if I had played the game. Gets a C, especially with no game footage.

-Final Fantasy piano medley - some guy who blindfolded themselves and took a video of himself playing Final Fantasy (and put it on the internet, which lots of people downloaded) did this piece. He's a good pianist, but I've definitely heard better. He was hopping around in his chair animatedly as he performed - kind of melodramatic or cheesy. I'd give this a B+ or A-. The "video" during this bit was of him playing.

-Tron - montage of the movie + the classic arcade games + a little bit of Tron 2.0 thrown in was the video; the music was a medley of the movie score. I'd give this an A-, perhaps an A. I like the movie and Tron 2.0, but can see how it isn't everyone's cup of tea. My friend who went with me had never done Tron at all, and expressed confusion at the whole thing. No actors from the movie were depicted in the video montage at all (probably an issue of rights / royalties), which probably contributed to the confusion.

-Super Mario Bros - I believe this was the same rendition done previously by the Boston Pops with John Williams? Video was of course a montage of the MB / SMB / SMW / SML / SMSunshine / SM64 and original Donkey Kong games. Classic NES video was NOT shown, however, in favor of the SNES remake of SMB1-3. This one was good, and gets an A.

-Advent Rising. OK, now we get to the main beef. Tallarico was the composer for Advent Rising - this is clearly the reason why they did this piece. All the other games featured in the night's presentation were classics and are clearly enjoyed by a lot of people. Even if I'd never played the game, I could see why the game's music would be chosen for the concert. Advent Rising? I'm sorry - did anyone buy or play this game at all? This game is STILL languishing in bargain bins across the country - they can't even give this thing away. The game got average or mediocre reviews from just about everyone. The music was OK - I'm not sure I would put it on my iPod; I certainly can't remember the music at all. I would give this performance a solid C-, especially because NOBODY CARES ABOUT ADVENT RISING! It was hard not to view this as a clear opportunity for Tallarico to stroke his (potentially enormous?) ego. I was a little annoyed that they even played this. This segment was performed OK but still completely forgettable.

At some point between pieces in Act 2, Tallarico says "Look at my shirt! I have to show them my shirt. I love this shirt" It was a light-up shirt with LCDs on it; I couldn't tell what game it was from. Maybe Pong? The audience was like: what?

-Then they did Halo to end the program. Halo montage, obviously. Now, I absolutely love the Halo sountrack...but there was something fishy with this one, and I'm pretty sure it's that some of this performance was canned. I heard the trademark drums, and then I looked at all the percussionists in the orchestra - and I didn't see any of them doing anything. Then I thought to myself: the drums from this piece don't sound like the kinds of drums I see on stage. I saw the stringed instruments going on, but I'm really not sure whether they were playing ALONG with a canned song or if they were performing it. I'd give this a B or B+, but...hello? I came to hear a live concert. I can get canned stuff on my iPod any day.

-The "encore" (which Tallarico made sure people asked for...when was the last time that the conductor or whoever had to TELL people to ask for an encore?) was One-Winged Angel. Tallarico came out on stage with an electric guitar and hammed-up a performance of some guitar rhythms to go with the orchestra. He was jumping around and headbanging and crap. If they had to do any piece from FF7, this wouldn't have been my choice - I think the main theme is fine, and I've heard it not-live in orchestral form before. Oh, and there was some video that they wanted to play for this, but apparently the guy running the DVD couldn't get it to work right - kept trying track 11 of 13 (which showed up on the screen), which was Halo. Pressing "play" must be hard, huh? Maybe that's a little harsh, but still...did these guys rehearse?

After this Tallarico and Jack Wall do this dorky "jump off" the conductor's podium, and Tallarico acts like this was the end of a totally awesome rock concert, thanks everyone for "supporting the cause" (?). Hello? I came to hear a concert; not "support the cause." What cause?

The info in the program was pretty spare (which is why I can't quite remember what order the songs were played in), although it did have a lengthy section of glowing praise for Tallarico (same as on MobyGames - http://www.mobygames.com/developer/s...loperId,52739/ ).

Jack Wall actually seemed somewhat professional about the thing, but Tallarico acted like a clown. It was a far cry from video games being considered "art," despite the venue (JFK Center concert hall). It was worth the price of admission, but was still plagued by cheesiness and some poor choices of pieces to perform. I can tell that this concert is still in its beginning stages and is rough around the edges; hopefully it'll get better over time. I was waiting for two games in particular that were mentioned on the VGL site: CASTLEVANIA (!!!) and Beyond Good & Evil, both of which have great music and both of which would have been light-years better than Advent Rising. Hello? NO CASTLEVANIA MUSIC at Video Games Live?

I would recommend going, but by all means don't go in hoping for the video game music event of your life.

Anybody else been to see this, and have any other thoughts? Similar ones, disagreeing opinons, etc.?

[Push Upstairs]

What, no "Sonic Medley"?

[8Ways2Tuesday]

Yeah, I got the postcard from the local symphony for this years video game concert and pitched it. The 'Dear Friends' concert was good two years ago, but 'Play!' last year was... not good. Seriously not good (in Detroit, for those curious). I'd rather listen to my CDs, sadly.

[DragonMaster Sam]

I went to last night's Video Games Live concert, and I enjoyed it. Just never let any 12 year old boy, or girl (like last night), play Space Invaders. You're supposed to eliminate the enemies, not the safe zones.

[ubersaurus]

Yeah, I got the postcard from the local symphony for this years video game concert and pitched it. The 'Dear Friends' concert was good two years ago, but 'Play!' last year was... not good. Seriously not good (in Detroit, for those curious). I'd rather listen to my CDs, sadly.

I liked Play at Detroit last year.

[Jorpho]

Gee, it's hard to justify a $40 price tag after a review like that. Can someone suggest other comments on this concert out there? It's in Montreal next week, you see.