Video Games Live In KL!

Ok the first time we heard of Video Games Live was after when we missed the opportunity to go hear Distant Worlds perform in Sporeland. VGL was coming up in Sporeland and we could actually get tickets, but we weren't too sure about it. One thing was because VGL featured music from loads of video games, including games we've not played like Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts and Halo.

Went to iTunes and found that they have an album out there, and checked the songs. Out of the lot, we were only really inclined to listen to the Civilization IV Medley. We're not really sure how the other songs would sound, and we aren't even sure if the Civ IV Medley would have Baba Yetu in it.

Anyways we skipped the VGL concert in Sporeland as we weren't too sure of the venue they were performing in and moped over the loss of Distant Worlds but got over it...

Then about a month back lad informed us that VGL was coming to KL. Since they were coming here, we made a spontaneous decision to go and immediately bought tickets for lad, esteban (the two most likely to enjoy video games music among the lot heh), and for Chief and us. And every now and then we would get paranoid that we would forget to bring the tickets on the day itself.

Come last Saturday, we drove everyone down to KL, making a dinnerstop at Yellow Cab near Asian Heritage Row for dinner.

So...we couldn't decide what size pizzas to order, and had the waitresses bring out all the pans so we could see just how large a 10" and a 14" pizza would be, and ended up ordering two 14" pizzas to share among the four of us - an anchovy pizza and a mushroom pizza.

Verdict? Rather good, but rather pricey at over RM40 per pizza heh. And these aren't the meaty options with chicken, beef pepperoni and salami and the likes. We've yet to try those. But they were filling, and the four of us were definitely full after that.

Headed straight to KLCC with barely fifteen minutes to spare! Arrived at the Plenary Hall just in time to seat and let the show start.

What can we say about the concert?

Ninty to ninty-five percent fanboy attendance. Rest, fangirls/girlfriends/wives.



The opening had everyone excited. This concert was one where no one sat quiet throughout the performance. Everyone was cheering and clapping at every point of the show! Hearts were plucked at nostalgic 8-bit games coming up on screen with the music supplied by the orchestra, everyone laughed to see Tetris played as the screen slowly filled up with Tetraminos (accompanied by music from the NES version of the game, oh and there was a choir too! They had to shout 'HEY!' at the end of the Tetris piece!), everyone shouted to see old games pop up.

In between performances there were videos from the composers, a Skype conversation with the creator of Pong, and games! One dude was invited on stage to play Space Invaders, he had to wear a t-shirt with the picture of the spaceship and ran left and right about the stage to shoot the incoming alien invaders. He didn't manage to win the top prize, but the goody bag he got had pretty good premiums too! Portable Space Invaders, an Earthworm Jim CD, he got to keep the Space Invaders t-shirt... The fun bit was the orchestra playing the background beat to Space Invaders, which got consecutively faster as the invaders approached closer, and the audience clapped along as well...

It was when the host asked for the winner of the Guitar Hero competition held earlier that we only found out that we missed out a fair bit going on before VGL started that night. Anyways, the winner was invited up on stage where he got to play Guitar Hero: Van Halen. The song? "Jump", accompanied by the host, Tommy Tallarico on electric guitar, the orchestra and the choir (who shouted "Jump!" at every point in the song hahaha). Initially the winner was supposed to play the song on Hard, but the entire audience made him play it on Extreme - which he did quite well!

So there were music from Metal Gear Solid, Mega Man, Kingdom Hearts, Halo (this one we found the music very good even though we've never seen or played the game before), World Of Warcraft (there are more choral pieces than just A Call To Arms!), Sonic The Hedgehog (the choir even sang the "Sega!" bit at the start!), Super Mario, Shadow Of The Colossus, God Of War, a special appearance by Norihiko Hibino (composer for the Metal Gear Solid songs) playing 'Snake Eater' on the sax, and Laura Intravia dressed up as 'Flute Link' playing a medley of Zelda songs, and at the end...

Tommy (host): The company is...Square Enix!
(Audience goes wild.)
Tommy: The composer...Nobuo Uematsu!
(Audience goes wilder, shouts, cheers and whoops.)
Tommy: The game...Final Fantasy!
(Audience claps, cheers, shouts out their favourite series.)

Jack Wall, that is, we think it's Jack, the conductor, raises up one finger. No response from Tommy. Two fingers. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Tommy: ...SEVEN!
(Can audience go crazier? Apparently so.)
Tommy: THE SONG!
(Tommy and audience in unison, audience in fevered pitch, we too guiltily shouting along.)
Tommy and audience: ONE! WINGED!! ANGEL!!!

Seriously, has there been such fanaticism ever for an orchestra performance? Even for the Lord Of The Rings Symphony everyone was civil. No screaming fanboy singing along to 'The Bridge Of Khazad-Dum' or 'The Black Rider' for that matter. This was a rock band concert kind of audience reception to an orchestral performance.

There's only eight choir members which meant that they couldn't really be heard that strongly but the sound set up was very good. Lyrics from the original One Winged Angel, with music arrangement from the Advent Children movie with electric guitar bits. Absolutely grand.

For their encore performances, they gave us not only one, but TWO encore songs! First was a forum request for Chrono Trigger, which sent lad straight to heaven as he loves the game and wasn't expecting them to perform it. The second? Castlevania, performed by the orchestra, Tommy and Jack on guitars, Norihiko on sax and Laura on flute.

All in all, an awesome performance. Now...merchandise.

When it comes to musicals we would normally get the programme and probably the CD as souvenirs. But for this event, the programme booklet was RM25 for photos from their past concerts, no text, no credits to the National Symphony Orchestra or the VGL Choir or such. It really didn't feel something worth getting. As for the CD, it was the same one as we would find on iTunes, except almost twice as expensive. Somehow we refrained from getting it too. Could have gotten something else since they had other merchandise, like t-shirts, but we walked away with just our tickets and the event leaflet.

Now it turns out that members of the YKLS Chamber Choir were singing as the choir for VGL! This, we did not know as we decided to take a break this year. Met the bunch of them after the show where they let loose some steam over the short period of time they had to learn the songs, the difficulty of some of the scores...talk shop, basically.

Would we have joined as part of the choir instead of the audience if we knew? In this case, we think we best enjoyed the entire thing as audience. The choir couldn't see the screen to see what was showing when songs were playing, so it was hard to make out why the audience were all so hyped up. The energy may be infectious and you'd feel chuffed up for the performance, but the experience just would not be the same.

Plus, asides from Warcraft's 'A Call To Arms', the chanting from the epic-sounding pieces of Halo, FFVII's 'One Winged Angel', we don't think there was much songs we missed singing. Hmmm if they performed 'Baba Yetu' it might be touch-and-go between audience and choir...

For Distant Worlds, if they need choir members, oooh yes count us in straightaway!

So, will we watch this again? Sometime in the future, yeah!