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Anyone been to one of the Video Games Live (http://www.videogameslive.com) concerts? My wife and I are going to one later this month and I'm just curious if anyone else has been to one and what they thought.

I don't know why but this FREAKS ME OUT!  (http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/eyes.gif)

Looks like a lot more fanfare than actual....music. I'm not sure, but their trailer certainly did not help any.

I SUMMON YOU FROM THE DEPTHS.

The wife and I have tickets to this on Nov 9th, anyone been? Have any thoughts? The wife has been wanting to go see the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra for quite some time, and I figured that this might be something  I could actually sit through.

Oh shit, they're playing in Phoenix but it's sold out. Drats.

Definitely tell us how it is.

I caught this at the Kennedy Center back in June.  Parts of it are about as cheesefilled as you'd expect, but a lot of it is quite well done and it makes for an enjoyable show.     If/when they swing back through my area I'd go again.

I'm still kind of freaked out, man.

I did it; I saw it at wolftrap; it was fairly fun.

I saw it in Edmonton last January. I enjoyed it a lot, but I'm as big a music fan as a game fan. More telling is that my wife enjoyed it, though she hadn't expected to (one of those "I'm glad you made me come to this" moments). You will have to put up with some theatrics from Tommy Tellarico; he's got a showman personality, that's just who he is. The audience participation stuff really depends on who they get. The show I went to, they chose a couple of junior high kids to play Frogger to a live score conducted by Jack. They had no idea how this strange, prehistoric game was played.

I'm sure they've updated, but the program they played here included a variety of old coin-op themes, MGS, Myst, MoH, Civ4 (an unexpected thrill for me), several from FF, including a piano solo written by Video Game Pianist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Leung) and played by his sister Lee Ann, KH, Sonic, WoW,  Jade Empire, Advent Rising, Mario (another piano solo by Lee Ann), and a suite from the Halo trilogy.

Orlando in January... hm.

I (and my kids) thought it was a lot of fun. We saw it at the Hollywood Bowl. My kids also got to see me being a celebrity, because I did the meet & greet/signing thing beforehand, and it was mobbed. I sat next to David Hayter, who is the voice of Solid Snake...

My review is here:

http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/09/23/video-games-live-concert/

I want to see this, but the TBD for Toronto scares me. The next date before it is 2009. Anyone know how their booking works? Is it random?

They did ~30 shows in 2007, so I'm guessing they'd do close to that in 2008.  TBA stuff is just contract and schedule wrangling and as we get closer to 2008 we'll start seeing those dates get filled in.

Saw this on Friday night and quite enjoyed it. The crowd was everything from suit wearing Orchestra season ticket holders, to kids in baggy jeans and baseball hats. My wife, who is NOT a gamer, was fairly sceptical of the whole thing, but had a very good time as well. They started out by playing a compilation of older arcade titles such as Donkey Kong, Defender, and Frogger which worked great because they were instantly recognizable games for the wife and she was hooked right from the get-go.

I was hoping they'd play some Bioshock stuff, but never got to that. I guess they have about 40 pieces and can only play about half of them at each show. Of course, Halo was the big finale with 'One-Winged Angel'  from Final Fantasy VII as the encore (I had to look up the name in case you wondered, I just knew it as the Sephiroth fight song). Tommy Tallarico can be a bit annoying at times and when he played his guitar with the encore, he was really too far over the top.

They pulled a girl up from the audience to play Space Invaders while the orchestra played along. They gave her a t-shirt with the players ship on the back and made her run from one side of the stage to other while pressing a button to play the game and had a couple of kids that have never seen Frogger, play it very badly in front of everyone.

I'd definitely go again if they came back and even my parents, after hearing about it, were interested in going. Pretty fun evening and something different for us to do on a Friday night. Biggest thing though is how much the wife liked it, especially considering how leery she was about it to begin with.

I wish they'd play something else. One-Winged Angel was ok, but there were a lot better pieces from the FF series that could replace it. Especially in an orchestral setting.

http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?story=111 

They supposedly retooled/updated the show, so I was hoping they'd drop OWA as it's been done to death over the years.    Hopefully they will before it makes its way back out to DC as I really don't need to hear it again.

NECRO'D

Played again tonight in Edmonton. They debuted new arrangements of Metroid, Mass Effect, and, in the encore ("We finished it two days ago!"), Castlevania.

At the end of the Mass Effect segment, they segued into a surprise performance of "M4 Part II" (the closing credits song) by local rock band the Faunts.

Did they add still alive to their list?  I don't think I could miss an orchestra playing some portal goodness.

Nope.

I was actually in Edmonton this weekend, and the wife and I debated catching the show again, especially considering they were debuting the Mass Effect stuff.

Er... should've come?

If I'd known, I would have made an effort to meet you. Not that we know each other, but seeing a fellow F13'er in person would be novel.

I make the drive up the Queen E way too much so one of my northern visits we'll have to meet up and have a beer imo. Alberta F13 meeting, all 2 people!

Someone's uploaded videos of the Edmonton performance (http://www.youtube.com/user/nilscast).

Finally, I get to see the opening of the Mass Effect video presentation. Somebody decided that shining blinding blue lights into the audience starting with the "sunburst" would be clever and immersive.