Video Games Live 2009 in Richmond, Virginia

It came as something of a surprise that Video Games Live was coming to Richmond, Virginia, which I considered something of a backwater in terms of being a major city where a world tour concert show might go. However, I put forth my money to see the show gladly.

For those who haven't heard of it, Video Games Live is a orchestral and choral concert focusing on video game music. It started as a short lived US tour in 2005, but has since grown and expanded to dozens of dates; according to the show's host, composer Tommy Tallarico, there are more than 60 show dates around the world for 2009, up from just three in its first year. What separates Video Games Live from "normal" concerts and even many other video game concerts is its focus on multimedia and crowd participation with interactive segments; there's a big screen projector playing throughout the show, and lasers and strobe lights are whizzing around the crowds.

I am perhaps more classical than many fellow gamers; I'm really after the music, not any sort of "sideshow" to attract what some consider ADD-youths and gamers. But today many of the best-selling soundtracks are for video games; the medium long ago moved past its kids-oriented roots into a mature and often adult medium. The continuing growth of Video Games Live says something about how popular such music has become: in a way, this is the modern classical music for a new generation that might sniff at Mozart, Bach, or Prokofiev.

The April 25 showing was a historic one, as the Richmond venue turned out to be the 100th VGL show. I had bought the companion CD a while back and knew many of the segments from the disc--among the pieces were from the popular series Mario, Medal of Honor, Metal Gear Solid, Halo, Civilization, God of War, Tetris, Final Fantasy, WarCraft, and slew of classic arcade games. Luckily, however, the show threw in new music which kept the listening enjoyable even for someone like me. Among the additions were the popularly requested Chrono Trigger (in which both Tallarico and composer/conducter Jack Wall broke out guitars to jam in what was one of the best sessions of the entire night) and Metroid helped to break the mold from what are the generally popular titles and feature some lesser-known but no less impressive music.

Of course, the main difference between Video Games Live and other concerts is the aforementioned multimedia, and the show did not disappoint for those who were interested. Among the elements that engaged viewers was a randomly selected audience member who came to the front of the stage and played a level of Space Invaders, dodging bullets using his body and a button to fire while the orchestra improvised music in the background. Before the show, a Guitar Hero contest was held, and the winner took the stage after intermission to play Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" (with brass flares courtesy of the orchestra, it was the best rendition of the song I'd heard). The initial play level was to be set at Hard, but when the crowd screamed for Expert difficulty, the young man (clad in a Rock Band t-shirt) obliged, proceeding to break the concert record for the song with almost 250,000 points. The orchestra and entertainers took everything in stride, including constant shouts for them to play "Free Bird". At one point Tallarico told the audience to pull out their PSPs and cell phones to create a modern encore wave, cracking jokes about how someone who used his Macintosh laptop instead couldn't actually play games on it, or how they were still waiting for the PSPs to boot up. During the wait for the show a bunch of cute and entertaining side movies (including a real life Ms. Pac-Man) were fun to watch. Another high point of the show was the appearances by the "Video Game Pianist", Martin Leung, who played the Super Mario theme blindfolded and highlights from Tetris.

Unfortunately, while the music was great, elements of the show failed to live up to expectations. Part of the issue was Tallarico himself. At points, his emceeing was simply grating, and he danced around a little too much for my tastes. For points in the concert, he donned an electric guitar to jam with the orchestra, but ended up drowning out the more delicate sounds. The interactive nature of the show also had drawbacks; sure it was nice to have groups shout out when their favorite parts from games showed up on screen, but the constant chatter by people in front of me took away from the actual music far too often. The audience lights ended up blinded people whenever they wanted applause, which was an interesting Pavlovian move but which ended up being annoying and a seizure risk after a while. The arcing lights were interesting, but often obscured the television screen.

Perhaps the real message I got from Video Games Live is that its a concert for video game fans, by video game fans. My girlfriend (not a gamer) appreciated much of the music, but overall was underwhelmed. While some (like me) might prefer the actual music more (and if so, I recommend the CD over the entire show), others might find that the cosplaying, meet and greet with video game composers after the show, and interactive segments fit their idea of what a video game concert should be. Either way, I'm glad I went at least once, and I hope that VGL continues to 200 shows and beyond.