Okay, so yesterday I went to the Video Games Live concert at the Queen Elizabeth Theater in downtown Vancouver. The first concert of it's kind in Canada, a concert of video game music. I'm going to say this now, because if I don't, I'm going to burst.

That concert ROCKED! So much great music, and hearing it from a live symphony orchestra was simply amazing.

So I leave my house around five-ish. It might have been four, because nobody told me about the whole daylight-savings thing that happened this weekend. Yes, that meant I spent an extra hour waiting outside the theater, but we'll get to that later. I took the skytrain downtown, partially because I don't like navigating downtown Vancouver in a car, but mostly because I'm cheap on gas. Once I got downtown, I went to Golden Age Collectables to talk to the staff about their website.

I ended up buying "V for Vendetta", and not talking to the staff. Why? Because I'm horrible at saving money, and really quite shy. Before I continue with the rest of my concert-going story, let me just say this. Alan Moore is a writing genius. No, a writing god. I finished "V for Vendetta" before I got into the theater, and by god, it's an amazing graphic novel. I had dinner at a place called "Library Square Public House", a cool little sports bar in the same building as the Vancouver Public Library. Had a really nice burger, beer and fries. Anyways, enough with my tangent.

As I said before, I left at about five. So after I've eaten dinner, I think it's about six o'clock, so the doors will be opening in about an hour. Silly me. I spent two hours standing outside the Queen E Theatera because I'm too stupid to know about that whole daylight savings thing. At least it gave me time to read my new graphic novel.

I was one of the first people through the doors when they opened, and so I was one of the first people to the little merchandise booth. That's right, I bought some VGL swag. I bought myself a cd wallet, a pen, a poster, and the Halo 2 soundtrack ( which is really good, by the way ). Everything except the Halo 2 soundtrack has the groovy little VGL mascot on it. If you don't know what the mascot is, I'll give you a hint: Space Invaders. And you know you're a geek when you use the cd wallet you buy at a video game music concert to hold cd's from the various computer programming books you've bought. On with the show!

I was very, very pysched about this concert. And boy, did they deliver. They started off with a medly of the 'original' games. Those old 8-bit classics. The very first game to be shown on the screen behind the orchestra was Pong. Side note: when Pong showed up on the screen, someone from the crowd yelled "How'd you know what my favorite game was?". And from Pong they went on to some of the other classics. Space Invaders, Frogger, Ghosts and Gobblins, Gauntlet, Defender and many other classic arcade games got some screen time. It was a very nice way to start off an evening devoted to celebrating over 40 years of video games. Which is really what this concert was about. Not just the music, but the fact that they have become one of the main forms of entertainment in our society. From two guys in a garage making an amazing game, to multi-billion dollar corporations today, we've come a long long way.

After the finished with the classics, they moved on to some more modern games. Music from Metal Gear Solid was played, although they only showed clips from the Playstation versions, nothing from the original NES version. Castlevania got some screen time. I wondered how many people figured out it was Castlevania before they showed the title. See, sometimes they'd tell you what game was up next, or the title screen from the game would be shown at the start of the clip. But the other half of the time the title of the game wouldn't get shown until the clip was finished playing. One of the cooler games they played the music for was the Sonic the Hedgehog series. At the start of the clip, the choir actually sang the "Sega" that anyone who has played Sonic remembers very well. A stranger to the mix was Tron, which as far as I know, is the first video game based on a movie.

Now for some of my favorites. One thing I thought was really well done, was the video they played along with the music for the Medal of Honor games, a series based on World War II. If you've been reading my blog, you probably know how I feel about World War II. For the Medal of Honor series, they didn't show clips from the video games. Instead, they had a really moving montage of clips from World War II. It was a really touching moment. What was really nice, however, is that there was no bias in the clips shown. The only clips that weren't shown ( as far as I could tell ) were any clips shot by the Natzis'. There were clips shot by the Allies, as well as several clips from the Japanese. I really applaud the people who put together this concert for having the guts to do that.

They played music from "Beyond Good and Evil", a very good game that I recently played on the Xbox. Another game from the Xbox that was shown was the new game, "Advent Rising". I've been on the fence on whether or not to get "Advent Rising", mostly because for whatever reason, I haven't been able to rent it. But after seeing the clips that were shown and hearing the music, I've decided that I'm going to get it. One of the biggest crowd pleasers that played all night was the music from everybodies favorite games, Mario. That's right, a medly of music right from the original NES version all the way up to Mario Sunshine was played. Another crowd favorite was the Link ( Legend of Zelda ) series.

I know this sounds corny, but when they started playing the music from Mario, I could remember getting my first gaming system. The Super Nintentdo ( or SNES ). I got it for Christmas many years ago, and it came with the first console game I ever played, Super Mario World. Hearing the music from that game really plucked some of those old heart strings, I tell you. Same thing with the Link games. I remember wasting countless hours trying to beat that game, only to find out that there was a whole alternate dimension I had to beat as well. I wonder how many other people at that concert were able to relive some of their more treasured moments, if only for a short two hours?

World of Warcraft also got some of its' music played by the orchestra as well. The music to WoW is the only music that has ever given me shivers. It just seems to have that 'huge-larger-than-life-adventure' quality to it that just plain gave me shivers. I doubt you know what I'm talking about, so I'll just move on.

The last game to have its' music showcased was the Bungie hit, Halo. They played a mix of music from both Halo 1 and Halo 2. The interesting thing about the Halo video that was shown was that there was no footage of gameplay. The entire video was compiled from the many cutscenes from Halo. Just an interesting observation of mine. One of my favorite moments of the evening has to do with Halo, though. Before they began the music, the MC told us that the next song was regretably the last song of the evening. So he asked the crowd what game they'd like to hear the music of. Anyone who was there would agree with me, EVERYONE was shouting Final Fantasy. It kind of went like this:

MC: What would you guys and gals like to hear next?
Everyone: FINAL FANTASY!!!
MC: Sure, we can play Halo!

I'm pretty sure that they weren't allowed to play the Final Fantasy music ( I've been told there is a tour in the US playing the Final Fantasy music ), but it was still kind of entertaining to hear. And watch. The look on the MC's face was that priceless look of 'oh-crap'.

On a side note, the attendance for the concert was much larger than I though it'd be. There was a ton of geeky guys, which was to be expected, but there was also a large turnout of girls as well. There were a couple of families with young children who showed up as well. As for geeky girls, alas, all the cute ones were taken. Ah well.

And before I wrap up this convoluted story, I'd just like to share a little story. On my way to the skytrain station, I ran into a poor, out-of-luck, older gentleman. He had been standing in the rain for most of the day outside the skytrain hoping for some handouts. Despite the fact that I had just run to the skytrain station so I wouldn't miss my train home, I decided that I'd be a nice person. I walked him to the nearest 7-11, and bought him a hot chocolate and two apple fritters. Just a short walk in the rain, four dollars out of my pocket, and Carl had a something in his bely. I just wanted to say that even if you're in a hurry, please don't just ignore people looking for handouts. Sure, most of the people you'll see on the streets are there becasue it's their own fault. But even so, it doesn't hurt to be nice and buy them a coffee or something.

Anyways. Enough of my humanitarian, socials rumblings. Happy Halloween, and may the Great Pumpkin bring you sack-fulls of candy ( or whatever he brings ).

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