Video Games Live
(VGL) is a concert series created and produced by industry veterans and video game composers Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall. to help encourage and support the culture and art of video games, featuring music from over 50 major titles. Each featured segment is complemented by projected video footage, synchronized lighting, and on-stage interactive segments with the audience.
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VIDEO GAMES LIVE TICKETS
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Description
Video Games Live is the largest and most successful video game concert in the world, having performed worldwide to over 300,000 people by 2009. The concert's debut performance took place on July 6, 2005 at the
Hollywood Bowl featuring the
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Over 11,000 audience members participated in the largest video game concert at that time. Video Games Live was the first video game concert to ever perform in
Canada, The
United Kingdom,
Brazil and
New Zealand. It is also the first U.S. video game concert to perform in Asia at the 12,000 seat
Olympic Park Stadium in
Seoul,
South Korea.
The concert features a broad spectrum of video game music, including
Final Fantasy
,
Halo
,
World of Warcraft
,
Sonic the Hedgehog
,
The Legend of Zelda
and
Metal Gear Solid
, as well as retro arcade games such as
Tetris
and
Asteroids
.
In addition to the music, VGL concerts also include video footage from the games, synchronized to the music and projected on large screens at performances. Due to the environment of the show, all footage is approved for all ages by the
ESRB, meaning graphic violence in some of the games the music played is taken from (ie: Halo, Medal of Honor, God of War) is never shown during a concert. Some VGL concerts may also include exclusive "never-before-seen" video game footage from games that have yet to be released. In contrast to all the other video games featured,
SquareSoft has currently opted to retain exclusive performance rights to their Final Fantasy video footage, preventing it from being shown at the Video Games Live event. SquareSoft previously organized a competing series of Final Fantasy music concerts called
Dear Friends: Music From Final Fantasy
. Footage from the Kingdom Hearts series is also prohibited; instead, footage from Disney films represented in the Kingdom Hearts series are shown. The new segment with music from Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross also has no video music - Jack and Tommy are the visual "features" of this performance, playing guitar support.
VGL also boasts energetic lighting (also synchronized with the music), special fx, interactive music segments with the crowd, pre and post show festival activities, and interactive onstage games for selected audience members to participate in. Examples include an onstage
Frogger competition, and a "live-action" rendition of
Space Invaders.
History
Video Games Live premiered with a sold-out concert in July 2005 at the
Hollywood Bowl. Afterwards, organizers prepared the show for a 25-city tour of indoor venues, beginning with dates in
Seattle, WA and
Vancouver, BC. Due to a number of external and scheduling factors, organizers announced on October 25, 2005 a delay of a full scale tour. Shows were performed to critical success in Seattle and Vancouver.
Having performed 3 successful shows in 2005, they re-launched with an 11 show world tour in 2006 in places such as the
United States,
Brazil,
Canada and the
United Kingdom. Based on the success of tour in 2006, the show dates expanded to over 30 cities in 2007 and included such groundbreaking locations as
South Korea,
New Zealand &
Spain. In 2008 they performed 47 shows around the world and have over 70 shows scheduled for 2009.
A complete historical record of tour dates and locations may be found at the Tour Dates page of the Video Games Live website:
VGL in the schools and universities
VGL works with the local Visitors Bureau and Board of Education as well as the "Grammy in the Schools" program to raise awareness of the arts, music and culture by inviting classes to performance rehearsals, and "behind-the-scenes" tours as a way of introducing the industry to the youth. Students will also have the opportunity to speak with industry professionals, composers and musicians.
VGL also helps to provide Alfred Publishing with orchestrations and arrangements, enabling over 75,000 schools and universities across North America to play music from favorite video games. This includes arrangements for Drum Corps, Marching Band, and School Orchestra as well as individual instruments such as piano and guitar.
Description of interactive segments
- Frogger
: Two people are randomly picked out of the audience to come on stage and compete in a game of Frogger for 90 seconds (one at a time) while the orchestra plays the music to the game and changes it in real-time improvisation to match what the contestants are doing on the stage and big screen projection. The person with the highest score wins a $2,500 laptop or other similar prize.
- Space Invaders
: A random person is picked out of the audience to come up on stage to become the video game. The person is tracked on stage and moves left and right to control the spaceship from the game. They are given a button to fire with. The orchestra, once again, improvises the game music in real-time with the competitor's actions. The player has 2 minutes to finish the first level of the game. As an added challenge, each time a bonus ship comes across the top of the screen, the player earns their score amount in cash. However, the player can only win this money if they complete the level within two minutes.
- Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
: The winner of the Guitar Hero contest before the concert starts comes out and is challenged to get 200,000 points while playing Sweet Emotion from Aerosmith on Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on Hard. The Orchestra plays along in the background. The winner gets a $2,500 AMD laptop and a Razer Mouse. In 2009, the Prize pool has been changed to a PSP, and several other goodies including video game soundtracks and Video Games Live apparel.
- *At the 100th Video Games Live show in Richmond, VA on April 25, 2009, the winner of the contest was challenged to play the song on Expert and earned over 250,000 points. Host Tommy Tallarico declared it the highest score earned to date at any Video Games Live show. However, in the 4pm showing of the London show on 24 October 2008, contestant Tom Chaplin, playing the same song scored 290,000 points, only breaking a streak when he was distracted. This was, at the time, the highest score. Nearly a month later, at the Edmonton concert, contestant Jeff Orom achieved a 305,000 score on Expert, shattering the previous record. On July 7, 2009, at the Winnipeg show and a Video Games Live first, 8 people were brought on stage to compete. The top two being Cody Carlson and Ken Woycheshen. Cody and Ken faced off for the first round. Cody at 314,000, and Ken at 308,000. Cody Carlson beat the previous high score by 9,000 points, setting the new record at just over 314,000. In the final round, Cody and Ken, being the two top, dueled it out. Ken won the second round, beating the newly placed record at just over 315,000, setting a new record. On July 8, Ken performed onstage against Cody. As their scores were so close, they were both brought out for a sudden death match with the orchestra playing live. The heat was intense, but Ken managed to emerge victorious, and set the new record at 324,856, missing only 2 notes. To the amazement of the crowd, Ken played for 30 seconds with his back to screen, without missing a single note.
Segments featured in Video Games Live
- Advent Rising
- Beyond Good & Evil
- BioShock
- Castlevania
- Chrono Cross
- Chrono Trigger
- Civilization IV
- Command & Conquer
(Red Alert)
- Diablo III
- Dragon's Lair
- EverQuest II
- Final Fantasy
(multiple segments)
- God of War
- Halo
(multiple segments)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Headhunter
- Kingdom Hearts
- The Legend of Zelda
series
- LucasArts
Medley
- Mass Effect
- Medal of Honor
- Mega Man
- Metal Gear Solid
- Metroid
- Myst
- Need For Speed: Undercover (featuring Splitting Adam)
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Space Ace
- StarCraft II
- Super Mario Series
(multiple segments)
- Tom Clancy Series
Medley
- Tomb Raider (series)
- Tron
- Warcraft
(multiple segments)
- A Classic Arcade Medley from over 25 classic games (which is somewhat comical for games with no music as sound effects are made by the orchestra for Pong and Robotron).
- LeetStreet Boys' "Yuri The Only One" is often featured as the opening segment.
Featured solo performances
The show features solo performances without orchestral backing.
- Final Fantasy
piano solo (consisting of 10 different Final Fantasy songs)
- Super Mario Bros
piano solo
- Chrono Cross
piano solo
- Tetris
piano solo
- Castlevania
organ solo
- Namco Classics piano solo (Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig-Dug)
- Contra guitar solo
Pianists include
Martin Leung and Lee Ann Leung..
Guitarists include
Chris Kline -
vertexguy.
See also
- Video Game Music
- Mario & Zelda Big Band Live
- Tommy Tallarico: Co-Founder/Composer (Earthworm Jim, Advent Rising, MDK)
- Jack Wall: Composer/Co-Founder (Myst III & IV, Jade Empire)
- Video Game Pianist: Performer at VGL
- Chris Kline - vertexguy: Guest Performer at VGL
- Richard Jacques: Composer (Headhunterseries)
- Nobuo Uematsu: Composer (Final Fantasy series)
- Marty O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori: Composers (Halo series)
- Koji Kondo: Composer (Mario series, The Legend of Zelda series)
- Harry Gregson-Williams: Composer (Metal Gear Solid series)
- Norihiko Hibino: Composer (Metal Gear Solid series)
- KONAMI KuKeiHa CLUB: Composers (Castlevania series)
- Jason Hayes: Composer (World of Warcraft)
- Yoko Shimomura: Composer (Kingdom Hearts series)
- Masato Nakamura: Composer (Sonic the Hedgehog)
- Hikaru Utada: Singer/songwriter (selections from Kingdom Hearts series)
- Gerard Marino: Composer (God of War series)
- Michael Giacchino: Composer (Medal of Honor series)
- Wendy Carlos: Composer (Tron)
- Christophe Heral: Composer (Beyond Good & Evil)
- Laura Karpman: Composer (EverQuest II)
- Christopher Tin: Composer (Civilization IV)
- Cris Velasco: Composer (God of War series)
- Michael Land Composer (Lucasarts Medley)
- Steve Vai : Performer on Halo Theme