Codejunkie

My wife and I saw "Video Games Live" at Massey Hall in Toronto on Friday September 1. The basic premise of the show is a having a local orchestra (mostly members of the TSO) play music from popular video games, synchronized to footage from said games.

The show was amazing. The orchestra sounded great and the hosts / video game composers Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico (from the video game television show Electric Playground) made the evening a lot of fun.

The way that the live music was synchronized to video segments from the games was really effective.

I really enjoyed the Classic Gaming medley, which opened the show. It included orchestral interpretations of sound effects and music from Pong, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command, Defender, Tempest (Yay!), Centipede, Robotron 2084, Joust, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Dragon's Lair, Gauntlet, Rastan and Outrun.

They played longer sections of music from the Mario series, Zelda, Halo, World of Warcraft, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Sonic, Everquest, God of War, Medal of Honor, Myst, Tron, Advent Rising and Jade Empire.

They also had two interactive segments. 1) they brought someone from the crowd up on stage and made him run around on the stage as the ship from "Space Invaders". His action on stage was mirrored on screen and if he had gotten enough points, he would have won something cool - he didn't! 2) they brought two people from the crowd onstage to play Frogger - most points wins a new notebook computer! The 18 year old young woman who had never played Frogger before won!!

I was pleased that they sold out Massey Hall. It's always a great venue - but better when it's full.

The show also features the "Video Game Pianist" Martin Leung. He played a medley of music from the Final Fantasy series of games - I'm not familiar with the games, but people around us were singing along! He also did some other stuff which was fun, including the banjo music theme from Earthworm Jim (composed by Tommy Tallarico).

Overall it was a really fun evening. We were in the first row on the floor - so we were close to everything, but a bit too close - I would have like to have seen the whole stage at times.

Also, I was invited to the rehersal, but couldn't make it. That would have been fun...

If this tour comes back to Toronto next year, we'll definitely go back!