The Quixotic Engineer

I’d heard from friends and other video game enthusiasts that Video Games Live was a fantastic experience and well worth going out of your way to see. Unfortunately, life got in the way when they came to Montreal a few months ago, but yesterday I was given a second chance. They were putting on a free show at Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto, no more than a hour or two away from my current residence in Waterloo. I thought I’d do a little recap of the evening’s events, and hopefully convince you to check them out if they’re playing near you.

The show was scheduled to start at 8:30, but we got there at 7 to ensure a good spot (it was a free show after all.) There were Wii and Xbox 360 stations set up for people to play, as well as a Guitar Hero competition that went on throughout the day. There were a few cosplayers, including a troupe of Jedis and a dude in a fantastic Phoenix Wright costume. There were also hordes of people playing DS while they waited, so it was a good opportunity for me to take advantage of The World Ends With You‘s mingle mode feature.

Before the main event, the two finalists of the Guitar Hero competition were invited to play a final match on the unreleased Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, playing the Run-D.M.C. cover of “Walk This Way.” The winner got a free copy of the game, and an Xbox if I recall correctly. They also had a costume competition, and someone in a pretty good Kid Icarus costume won (Phoenix Wright was robbed! Objection!)

Once conductor Jack Wall bounded onto the stage in an outfit that would make Ian Anderson proud, the show began with a medley of arcade music. Accompanying it were short video clips of the games in question, as is the formula of the entire show. The crowd loved it, often shouting out the names of their favourite games as they appeared on screen. I would say that there were approximately forty musicians on stage, including a full choir and two or three solo opera vocalists.

Host Tommy Tallarico then took the stage, telling the crowd a little about the history of Video Games Live and the programme for the evening. Apparently they have roughly forty different game sets prepared, but only play fifteen or so every show. He also explained that they employed local musicians, which I thought was rather commendable.

The next set featured music from the Metal Gear Solid series, which included an audio introduction by David Hayter and a video foreword by Hideo Kojima. As the music played an MGS guard walked across the stage, pursued by a cardboard box. When he became suspicious, an exclamation mark appeared over his head and the band began to play the “warning” music. It was terrific fun.

This was followed by music from God of War, Final Fantasy, Sonic, Mario, Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, Myst, Metroid, Civilization IV, and World of Warcraft. There were several solo performances by Martin Leung, of blindedfolded piano YouTube fame. They also included two small contest segments. The first pit the winner of the Guitar Hero competition against Space Invaders, with a motion sensing shirt that had him running across the stage to control his ship. Unfortunately the controls were sloppy at best, and he was eliminated very quickly. The second had two contestants randomly chosen from the crowd go head-to-head at Frogger, with the orchestra playing music for their game in real time.

The show lasted approximately two and a half hours, with a 20 minute intermission. They played the music from Halo for the finale, with Tommy Tallarico picking up Steve Vai’s part on the guitar. The crowd, predictably, demanded an encore, so they came back out with Final Fantasy VII‘s “One Winged Angel.” Finally, they closed the show with the music of Castlevania, which was really terrific.

Video Games Live was a tremendous experience and I’m thrilled to have travelled out to see it. Beyond the show itself, it was just really nice to be among a crowd of fellow geeks, a sub-culture coming together to relive their experiences with video games. Whereas most “gatherings” of gamers greatly depress me (Xbox Live, Internet forums, etc.), watching hundreds of people waving their DSs and PSPs in the air to the Castlevania theme song truly warmed the cockles of my heart.

[Photos by Sam Javanrouh, who was standing next to me at the concert and very kindly released his pictures under Creative Commons.]