A Videogame Symphony..
If there's a better way to pack seats of the symphony with twenty-somethings than having a symphony of video game music, I don't know of one. I think a recent symphony featuring the music of Star Wars might have done a similar trick - but lets face it, Star Wars ain't nearly the property it used to be, courtesy of Whineakin Skywalker and Jar-Jar.

But video games are more popular than ever, and the music has gone from being highly synthetic single-note beeps to full-on orchestral scores worthy of a major motion picture. And being able to listen to an orchestra celebrating the music of the video games kicks all kinds of butt. We know it, they know it, and so these concerts of video game music have been gaining steam over the last few years.

I don't think traditional audiences at the Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City whoop and holler when the conductor announces that the next number will be Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor. I can't say - I don't go that often.

But tonight, when the conductor of "Play! A Video Game Symphony Live!" announced Castlevania as the next piece - or better yet, Kingdom Hearts - the audience went wild as if they were at a rock concert. And I really doubt the Utah Symphony or the chorus knew what to expect when conductor Eric Roth (substituting for Arnie Roth) announced that the encore presentation would be the notorious "One Winged Angel" - Sephiroth's theme from Final Fantasy VII.

Other music performed during the evening included music from the Super Mario Bros. series, the Battlefield series, the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Halo, Shenmue, Lost Odyssey, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Chono Trigger / Chono Cross, World of Warcraft, and the Legend of Zelda series.

My wife and I attended the Video Games Live concert a couple of years back, and really enjoyed it. This time we took the kids. They loved it. The event was simply a huge success.

Compared to the Video Games Live concert, I felt that this one had better musical arrangements overall, but Video Games Live was a little more fun. This one lacked the lasers, a couple of little on-stage games, and Tommy Tallarico hamming it up trying to fulfill his fantasies of being a rock star. This concert was much more sedate and traditional... relatively speaking.

But still full of awesome. My only complaints are for the music they didn't include.

Labels: music

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:58 AM (Permalink)