Last night I took Bethany to the 3rd consecutive night of Video Games Live in Utah. The first show was in Ogden, and then they did a Friday and Saturday performance at Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake. I heard about Video Games Live from an Interview X96 Morning Radio did with Tommy Talarico. As soon as I got to work I looked it up, read through the webpage and watched the trailer. It sure is a good thing I got to work early that day, eh?
By this point I was pretty sure it would be a really fun thing to go and see, so I called Bethany and asked what we were doing Saturday. Nothing planned. So I told her I was taking her out. I didn't tell her what it was, because I wasn't sure if she would be interested based on a description from me. Besides I like to do surprises once in a while.
She asked once or twice, but didn't really try to get it out of me the rest of the week. She even was the one who got the tickets in the mail and she didn't open it or try to figure it out. Thanks honey.
So Saturday comes along, and Bethany has a early luncheon with some girls from our ward schedules, and I had to go into work for a bit. As soon as that was done we took Kelby over to her Grammy and Papa's (My Mom and Earl) and off we went. It was still early enough for lunch so we grabbed a Taco from Taco Amigo and headed up.
We browsed through REI and I picked up the book, "Into The Wild", and then we went downtown to see what we could do with ourselves until 8PM.
We parked at the Gateway and walked around there a bit, then we walked down South Temple looking for something else to do, or where we should eat dinner. I decided that Downtown Salt Lake isn't like other Downtowns I've been to around the country, or even some other parts of the world. It doesn't have, to my knowledge, a good section of walking areas for shopping, eating, and hanging out.
So after walking quite a ways we turned around and walked back to the Gateway to eat dinner at Applebees. While we were at Applebee's I told Bethany what we were doing and tried to explain it so she wouldn't lose interest. I think she wasn't quite sure about it, but by now it was too late.
After Applebees we walked over to Abravanel Hall for the show. We got there pretty early and it wasn't quite what we expected at first. Lots of people had worn costumes from a video game character. It was very busy, and really there was people of every type in attendance. I even saw Cheryl from the HOA at work there.
We took our seats, which were very close, but far to the right side so we didn't have quite the best seats, but I can't complain. They did the costume contest first and a kid won who dressed up like a character from Kingdom Heats. I've never played that game but the costume did look pretty good.
Then the orchestra came on and was ready, and Jack Wall came out to start conducting. They started out with a mix of music from a whole bunch of early video games. Then Dany Tallarico came out and talked about the show and got very excited. They played music from so many games, and in no particular order, some of them were Final Fantasy, Super Mario Brothers, Advent Rising, Castlevania, Legend of Zelda, Warcraft, Medal of Honor, Metal Gear Solid, and more!
I have sometimes listened to the music in Video Games and thought it was pretty good, but I had never put a lot of thought into it. There is so much work that goes into all aspects of video games and the music is one of them. Experienced composers put together full scores and then sometimes they may have to modify them for what the game was capable of. Or at least in the beginning I'm assuming this was sometimes the case. So seeing this music performed live by the Utah Symphony, with Choir Parts done by the Snow College Choir.
There are so many parts to this show that were just so amazing. For Medal of Honor they had Jack's daughter come out and do some singing along with the music. They had gotten with the History Channel, or something, and put together real footage of World War II footage, which is the war the Medal of Honor takes place in. For Kingdom Hearts they had footage Disney put together for them of Disney Characters in the game. Lots of the games shows large cinematics that have amazing visuals.
There is this guy sometimes called the Video Game Pianist, Martin Leung, who they have recruited to play the piano at the show. He did two segments. One of them was music from Final Fantasy, I recognized music from 3/6, and then later he played Mario Brothers, blindfolded, which is how he got famous. I have to say he was something else. The way he could play like that.
They had two times where they called people up to play video games onstage. The first time we had a hunch that they called a bit heavier guy on purpose so that he wouldn't win. However he didn't follow helpful advice from Tommy very well either. He was asked to play Spaced Invaders and make it through 2 minutes. He didn't make it. The next time they called two people and they were asked to play Frogger. They had a minute and a half and whoever got the better score of the two was the winner. The girl went first and she got 1700 or so. Then this guy played and beat the first level and got a frog or two on the second in his minute and a half. He now holds the highest score for all their Video Games Live Shows. Which if they do 2 people a show and they have done 50-60 shows that's only a high score of around 100-120 people. But still he did good.
They brought a guy from the company who made Advent Rising out and asked him to announce a big secret. He announced they are again collaborating with Orson Scott Card on a game in which a new Civil War breaks out in the US. I don't even remember the name of it because of what he said next. After he announced that he said in a sort of quiet undertone, "We've also begun work, again with Orson Scott Card, on Enders Game." There was silence for just a moment and then everyone cheered. I would like to see how they are going to do that. But it was exciting none the less.
Near the end Tommy played an Electric Guitar, but because he kept turning into the stage I am not entirely convinced that he was really playing. But I could be wrong.
All in all it was quite a show and definitely something I would see again. It sounded like they are trying to come to most stops every year, but I thnk I could wait two or three years before checking it out again.
So what did Bethany think? I think she liked it, but I have asked her to type up her own review so we'll see what she has to say.