Last night the boys and I attended Video Games Live with the Utah Symphony. It was really great. They played a lot of video game music and I knew most of it. It was certainly different than any other kind of symphony concert that I’ve attended before. I had a great time, and I think the boys did too (Elena was sick, so she missed out 
) The following are some of the highlights:
- I’ve never seen such a diverse set of people at the symphony before. There were people who looked dressed for the symphony, mixed with people in costume, mixed with geeks wearing video game t-shirts, mixed with goths, mixed with everything else. And the ages were from little kids to AARP members.
- To start off with, they showed a video of Pac-Man running through the streets of New York. The vast majority of the audience was laughing and cheering Pac-Man on. But next to me was sitting an older couple. They seemed surprised that their symphony season tickets were including this concert. I heard the lady lean over to her husband and comment on the video with “I don’t understand why they are chasing him?” And even more funny, after intermission that couple (and the other couple sitting on the other side of us) were no where to be found.
- The concert started with the symphony playing the music to Pong. Yes… Pong. The timpani has never been used so well.
- I watched a 6′ 5″, at least 250 pound man run back and forth on the stage acting as the gunship in a game of Space Invaders projected up on the screen. He obviously has never played before. People kept yelling for him to shoot the guys on the ends, but he just didn’t get it.
- They played a great rendition of music from The Legend of Zelda. Loved every minute of it. Made me want to go home and start playing Twilight Princess again, but I think my brother still has it!
- I watched Martin Leung (The “Video Game Pianist”) play music from Final Fantasy, and play his trademark Super Mario Bros. music blindfolded. Awesome.
- I watched two kids play Frogger on a gigantic screen, with thousands of people cheering them on while the Utah Symphony played the game music. I’ve never felt so sad when a frog has fallen into virtual water. And I’ve never cheered as much for a frog getting across traffic (well… I cheered for George Costanza when he attempted to do it).
- They played music from Super Mario while game footage showed on the screen. It showed every single Mario game I could think of (even Dr. Mario) — and I think I’ve played almost all of them.
- They even played music from Kingdom Hearts while they ran movie clip footage of all the Disney characters used in the game. I’ve never played the game, but being a Disney freak the music and video were great
So there you have my full report. Great evening entertainment. I’d recommend it to anybody. (Except for the people that were sitting next to me.)
Lump
