The concert and .. maybe some other stuff (I haven't decided)
So the Video Games Live concert: great. Just an awesome show. Some of it could have been better, and they really lacked an air of any sophistication sometimes, but besides that it was awesome. The people playing in the Dallas Symphony Orchestra were obviously feeling a little lowbrow having to play video game music for a huge crowd of smelly underdressed nerds. Seriously, the guy next to me must have had to choose between his XBOX Live account and his water bill. STINKY.
The conductor, Jack Wall, and the host, Tommy Tallerico, are both video game music composers and really hit on something big with this show. I can't even imagine the money they are pulling in. Some of the music was obviously going to be in there: Mario medley, Zelda medley, an old-skool arcade montage, Final Fantasy 7. The video game pianist also travels with them and played a couple pieces. If you don't know who I'm talking about, just google or lookup on Youtube "video game pianist". He played the Mario theme blindfolded, the Super Mario World theme, Tetris, and then this Final Fantasy medley he arranged himself. I wasn't impressed by the medley. He can play fast and do really impressive technique, but the medley was just badly presented. I need to email him a REAL medley .. err, written by yours truly. :)
A couple other pieces were really well received. There was a Sonic medley (which when the choir stood up at the beginning and did the "SE-GA!" ... woo, that was awesome), a Warcraft medley (that one got some props), Metal Gear Solid and One-Winged Angel as an encore (from Final Fantasy 7). Then there was music no one knew. They did a Kingdom Hearts set (good game, but who remembered the music?), and Medal of Honor (another one of these where I think they just found a game they could license for cheap and then arrange the music as filler). Then you've got a Myst trilogy set (Jack Wall wrote music for the Myst 3 game) and an Advent Rising 3-movement piece (Tommy Tallerico wrote the score for that one). Sure, the music was decent, but everyone came to this show for the nostalgia. No one has ever even PLAYED Advent Rising. Filler music.
Oh, and there was Civilization 4 piece. Very nice. Sort of an African tribal feel ... the poor choir though. The rhythms were so tough and they were lagging behind. The conductor looked up at them in the choir loft and was REALLY beating out the music and pointing right at them. LOL, it was almost a train wreck. On the encore song, Tallerico broke out his wireless electric guitar (which I'm still not sure he was really playing .. he seemed too spazzed out to actually be hitting the right notes), and at the end, the orchestra was holding out the last note, and he jumped up on the conductor's stand and the two of them jumped off of it together and the orchestra ended when they hit the ground. They were just really proud of themselves. The orchestra (you could tell) was not so impressed by this stupidity.
All in all, it was worth the price of admission. I saw one more OCRemix shirt there, and I randomly saw some people I recognized that were groupies of the 1-ups remix band up in Fayetteville. They said that the rest of the group traveled down and saw it the night before. SUCK! They chided me over on their forums. Who knew they were coming? They even got to hang out backstage after the show with Tallerico and Wall. Doh!
Guess that's about it. And I guess I really don't have anything else to say. Oh, right ...
Read your bibles.
The conductor, Jack Wall, and the host, Tommy Tallerico, are both video game music composers and really hit on something big with this show. I can't even imagine the money they are pulling in. Some of the music was obviously going to be in there: Mario medley, Zelda medley, an old-skool arcade montage, Final Fantasy 7. The video game pianist also travels with them and played a couple pieces. If you don't know who I'm talking about, just google or lookup on Youtube "video game pianist". He played the Mario theme blindfolded, the Super Mario World theme, Tetris, and then this Final Fantasy medley he arranged himself. I wasn't impressed by the medley. He can play fast and do really impressive technique, but the medley was just badly presented. I need to email him a REAL medley .. err, written by yours truly. :)
A couple other pieces were really well received. There was a Sonic medley (which when the choir stood up at the beginning and did the "SE-GA!" ... woo, that was awesome), a Warcraft medley (that one got some props), Metal Gear Solid and One-Winged Angel as an encore (from Final Fantasy 7). Then there was music no one knew. They did a Kingdom Hearts set (good game, but who remembered the music?), and Medal of Honor (another one of these where I think they just found a game they could license for cheap and then arrange the music as filler). Then you've got a Myst trilogy set (Jack Wall wrote music for the Myst 3 game) and an Advent Rising 3-movement piece (Tommy Tallerico wrote the score for that one). Sure, the music was decent, but everyone came to this show for the nostalgia. No one has ever even PLAYED Advent Rising. Filler music.
Oh, and there was Civilization 4 piece. Very nice. Sort of an African tribal feel ... the poor choir though. The rhythms were so tough and they were lagging behind. The conductor looked up at them in the choir loft and was REALLY beating out the music and pointing right at them. LOL, it was almost a train wreck. On the encore song, Tallerico broke out his wireless electric guitar (which I'm still not sure he was really playing .. he seemed too spazzed out to actually be hitting the right notes), and at the end, the orchestra was holding out the last note, and he jumped up on the conductor's stand and the two of them jumped off of it together and the orchestra ended when they hit the ground. They were just really proud of themselves. The orchestra (you could tell) was not so impressed by this stupidity.
All in all, it was worth the price of admission. I saw one more OCRemix shirt there, and I randomly saw some people I recognized that were groupies of the 1-ups remix band up in Fayetteville. They said that the rest of the group traveled down and saw it the night before. SUCK! They chided me over on their forums. Who knew they were coming? They even got to hang out backstage after the show with Tallerico and Wall. Doh!
Guess that's about it. And I guess I really don't have anything else to say. Oh, right ...
Read your bibles.
posted by Karl at 8:46 AM
1 Comments:
Sounds fun!
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