Lady Vader
Jul 8th, 2005, 04:02:13 PM
It was a toss up between General Discussion (for the Hollywood Bowl bit) or General Gaming (for the game music bit). In the end, I figured those that frequent this forum would find this more interesting. :p
Anyhoooo...
Last Wednesday, July 6, I went to the Hollywood Bowl for the first ever Video Games Live, where they play orchestral video game music!
It was a serious geek fest out there, with a surprising even number of young and old alike.
For more info, check out the Hollywood Bowl website dedicated to the event (http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/tix/performance_detail.cfm?id=2414) and the Official Video Games Live website (http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=home).
The evening was awesome!
Pre-Show Festival:
They had a chance for gamers and fans to participate in a Meet and Greets (http://videogameslive.com/index.php?s=meet) with various game artists and producers.
They also had a large patio set up with restored classic and new arcade games (http://www.videotopia.com/) alike for people to play to their hearts content.
A costume contest with the winner walking away with a new gaming laptop was also held. They had the actual contest in a different building outside of the Bowl, and only showed the three winners (http://videogameslive.com/index.php?s=costume) before the show started on stage.
After the costume contest, they had a raffle. Everyone got a raffle ticket when they entered the Bowl. Two winners were chosen to receive gaming laptops. (I was so close... only a few hundred numbers off. :p )
The Show:
The 3-hour music festival (8-11pm PDT) was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonics Orchestra. The stage was set up with the orchestra on the stage proper, with a jumbo-screen dead center, and two others on either side of the Bowl. The center screen always showed footage from the games on which the orchestra was playing music from, while the side screens flipped back and forth between the game footage and live feeds of the orchestra playing their instruments. The even had some live action stunts to go along with some of the games and spectacular light and laser effects all throughout.
They started off with a special retro arcade segment that goes from Pong to Donkey Kong. From there they moved on to playing Metal Gear Solid (with live action stunts). They went on to play Tomb Raider, Beyond Good & Evil, Castlevania, Medal of Honor (with real WWII footage shown on the screens), Zelda, Headhunter, God of War, EverQuest II, Advent Rising (with live action stunts , Kingdom Hearts, Tron (with live action stunts), Sonic, Warcraft (*squeeeel*), Myst, Mario, and Halo (serious show stopper). In the program they also mentioned music from Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and Rainbow Six, but I honestly don't remember hearing that music.
(NOTE: The music indicated was not neccessarily play in the order I wrote it out.)
The intermission was neat in that they had a "loading screen" they'd made to place on the jumbo-screens. It had a horizontal bar that slowly filled up for the 20 minute intermission. Longest loading screen I've ever seen. ;)
After the intermission, they had another contest where they pitted an older lady against a young kid to play, of all things, Frogger. Save this Frogger game was special as the orchestra played music for it on the fly as the players played the game, complete with "dieing" and "losing" sounds. The kid of course won, and he too walked away with a gaming laptop.
All in all, the evening was very enjoyable, and I'll certainly be going back next year if they have it again. And this time, I'll bring my costume. Maybe I'll win that laptop next time. :D
For those interested in the Video Games Live musical festival, they are in the process of a grand US tour, with LA being their first stop. So check out their tour dates (http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=tourdates)... they may just be coming to your town!
Anyhoooo...
Last Wednesday, July 6, I went to the Hollywood Bowl for the first ever Video Games Live, where they play orchestral video game music!
It was a serious geek fest out there, with a surprising even number of young and old alike.
For more info, check out the Hollywood Bowl website dedicated to the event (http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/tix/performance_detail.cfm?id=2414) and the Official Video Games Live website (http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=home).
The evening was awesome!
Pre-Show Festival:
They had a chance for gamers and fans to participate in a Meet and Greets (http://videogameslive.com/index.php?s=meet) with various game artists and producers.
They also had a large patio set up with restored classic and new arcade games (http://www.videotopia.com/) alike for people to play to their hearts content.
A costume contest with the winner walking away with a new gaming laptop was also held. They had the actual contest in a different building outside of the Bowl, and only showed the three winners (http://videogameslive.com/index.php?s=costume) before the show started on stage.
After the costume contest, they had a raffle. Everyone got a raffle ticket when they entered the Bowl. Two winners were chosen to receive gaming laptops. (I was so close... only a few hundred numbers off. :p )
The Show:
The 3-hour music festival (8-11pm PDT) was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonics Orchestra. The stage was set up with the orchestra on the stage proper, with a jumbo-screen dead center, and two others on either side of the Bowl. The center screen always showed footage from the games on which the orchestra was playing music from, while the side screens flipped back and forth between the game footage and live feeds of the orchestra playing their instruments. The even had some live action stunts to go along with some of the games and spectacular light and laser effects all throughout.
They started off with a special retro arcade segment that goes from Pong to Donkey Kong. From there they moved on to playing Metal Gear Solid (with live action stunts). They went on to play Tomb Raider, Beyond Good & Evil, Castlevania, Medal of Honor (with real WWII footage shown on the screens), Zelda, Headhunter, God of War, EverQuest II, Advent Rising (with live action stunts , Kingdom Hearts, Tron (with live action stunts), Sonic, Warcraft (*squeeeel*), Myst, Mario, and Halo (serious show stopper). In the program they also mentioned music from Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, and Rainbow Six, but I honestly don't remember hearing that music.
(NOTE: The music indicated was not neccessarily play in the order I wrote it out.)
The intermission was neat in that they had a "loading screen" they'd made to place on the jumbo-screens. It had a horizontal bar that slowly filled up for the 20 minute intermission. Longest loading screen I've ever seen. ;)
After the intermission, they had another contest where they pitted an older lady against a young kid to play, of all things, Frogger. Save this Frogger game was special as the orchestra played music for it on the fly as the players played the game, complete with "dieing" and "losing" sounds. The kid of course won, and he too walked away with a gaming laptop.
All in all, the evening was very enjoyable, and I'll certainly be going back next year if they have it again. And this time, I'll bring my costume. Maybe I'll win that laptop next time. :D
For those interested in the Video Games Live musical festival, they are in the process of a grand US tour, with LA being their first stop. So check out their tour dates (http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=tourdates)... they may just be coming to your town!