Video Games Live (2007)

Videos:




http://www.videogameslive.com
- We sat in row E seats 13 and 14 which were really nice seats. They were only 5 rows back from the orchestra in front of the violins. Tickets were $66 each. I bought these back when the show was first announced.
- Doors didn't open until 7pm. The costume contest started shortly after that. The show didn't start until a little bit after 7:30pm and lasted to around 10pm. Pre-show activities outside of the hall started at 5:30pm. We didn't get there until around 6:30. We walked around around a bit and there wasn't a whole lot to do: gamecube with mario cart, a lone ps3 with motorstorm on a tiny SD TV, 360's with burnout on a large flat screen tv, 4 halo 2 stations, space invaders arcade cabinet (for the contest), and Guitar hero 2 on 360 also for a contest. The program mentioned DDR but I didn't see it. There were a lot of people, and it got pretty warm on the second floor.
- Attire was quite casual but we dressed up a bit since we went to a nice dinner before hand. At least a few people dressed up.
- Once we sat down the costume contest started shortly. I can't believe the little Mario won over Cloud. Cloud was robbed!
- I have to say the Symphony Orchestra performed beautifully. So did the Chorus which was used to great effect in several pieces like Halo. There was also a very pretty brunet solo vocalist which had an amazingly pure voice that really made Avant Rising a lot more enjoyable (since I never played that game).
- The lights and video were all nicely synchronized and very well done.
- It opened up with a big mix of classic video games. I've played them all! I never new Rastan could sound so good!
- Metal Gear Solid was excellent. They even introduced a bit of humor with a terrorist complete with light up exclamation point and Tommy Tallarico in a cardboard box.
- Later in the show Tommy came up on stage with a fully lit Pong shirt.
- There were two contests in the middle of the show. Once guy wore a special black T-Shirt with the player ship on the back in bright green. He had to run back and forth on the stage as a camera tracked his movement to move the on screen ship. It was quite amusing. Later some guy who won a contest from a radio show got to play frogger to win a $2500 AMD laptop.
- Some other highlights: Final Fantasy 8, Kingdom Hearts, Wow, Sonic,Zelda (including Twilight Princess), Civ IV (only FMV was shown), Medal of Honor (with real WWII footage from history channel), and Mario.
- Kind of lame that Square Enix wouldn't give out permission to display any video but that didn't detract much from the great music.
- My favorite part was solo Pianist Martin Leung. I play a bit of piano but this guy is freakin amazing! He is so incredibly fast. He started with a Final Fantasy megamix. Later he did some Mario and a Namco classics mix. You just have to see it to believe it (especially live). Needless to say he got a well deserved standing ovation.
- Things were wrapped up with an amazing Halo performance. Then, Tommy comes out and plays Halo 3 on electric guitar with the orchestra. There's another standing ovation. An encore performance of Final Fantasy 7 completes the evening.
- We didn't have time to stay for the Meet and Greet afterwards.
- The only minor complaint would be more music and less in between intros.

Overall this was just an amazing experience, and I highly recommend it to everybody to experience it at least once.