So Paul and I went to Video Games Live last night.  I won’t pull any punches, I thought it sucked bad.  The rest of the post is about that.  Just wanted to let you know what to expect, because I was under the wrong impression about Video Games Live.  I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about this post.

This is what the Oregon Symphony described Video Games Live as:

“The excitement and energy of a rock concert mixed with the power and emotion of the Symphony combined with cutting-edge video screen visuals, state-of-the-art lighting and interactive segments create an explosive one-of-a-kind entertainment experience for audiences of all ages – gamers and non-gamers alike.”

This is how I would describe Video Games Live:

“If you like watching Video Games played badly on a screen to music, you will love Video Games Live.  Video Games Live is a concert where you spend 3 minutes listening to a video game medley or theme and slight variation on a Video Game franchise.  They mix in elements of your local symphony and a poor quality kids choir and uninspired symphonic remakes of popular video game songs.  If you love watching jumpy Skype conversations with video game pioneers, being interrupted from listening to music by a annoying MC all the time, Video Games Live is for you. ”

I thought Video Games Live was so bad I left early.  Good thing I did, it was a waste of my time.

I believe 80% of the people loved the show.  This is important to note because if 99 people love something and I am the lone person that didn’t I consider it a success even though I disliked it.   Largely the show wasn’t really about music, it was a celebration of video games.  Celebrating video games is great, coming to something thinking it was about music is not.  The music they did do was poorly done and in a format I loathed.  Video Games Live puts the music into 2-3 minute bite sized chunks.  Since each song was only 2 – 3 minutes you don’t have enough time to explore it very well and thus the pieces were largely uninspired.  There were only two kinds of music they did a theme and oh so slight variation and the medley.  I really don’t like medleys so that stuff was lost on me.  The slight variations the composer put into the work was not that interesting as the source material so largely the variation pieces were pretty bland.  I got how they were doing stuff with the original melody, or tried, but it was pretty boring.  I felt in mostly every instance the original source work was superior.

During a piece about the Metal Gear Solid franchise they had someone come out on stage inside a box and a fat guy in a terrorist outfit.  If you are trying to breed legitimacy to video game music why do you also resort to this kind of cheese?  It was so bad it pained me to watch it.  I am not saying I hate people that cosplay.  I am not saying that mixing live action with music for a show is bad.  I like Ballet.  But this seemed to make the music less legitimate in my mind because it was SO BADLY DONE.  Which is what I thought of the show in general, it was very poorly executed.

At one point the conductor took a cell call from Solid Snake.  It would have been cool if it was well done but again, painful to watch people actually do something that lame.  Ive seen cosplay done right, this was no example of that.

I think if you are going to focus on music you should put 90% of the focus on music.  One huge detractor to the music was the video games being played on the screen above the music.  Now I get that this generation seemingly lacks any ability to focus unless you put the “magic box” in front of us.  But I have an imagination and I recognize music from games ive played.  I don’t need to you showing me someone playing Sonic The Hedgehog to realize the music is from the said game.  Plus the people playing the games were pretty bad.  If you are going to show Sonic the Hedgehog show some sick speed runs or someone kicking the games ass, don’t show someone that sucks at the game.

Largely everyone playing the games were pretty bad and it detracted from adding anything to music.  Ive seen Mario 3 in 15 or whatever minutes, it amazing to watch.  Why have someone who sucks be what you show as game footage?

They had a light show but I was just blinded by the white lights and it was more of an annoyance than cool.  They had a few rotating pattern lights.  It didn’t do anything to improve the ambiance of the show, it was just more cheese.

I love the Oregon Symphony, I think they are amazing players and I don’t have anything negative to say about their performance save that I heard little of it.  It sounded like on some songs they tracked some music that overshadowed the symphony in loudness and in terms of it sounding good at all.  During Metroid it sounded like they tracked the melody and had the symphony in as backup.  Oh and it sounded bad.  They also tried to do some “rock style” drums but that really doesn’t fit in with the symphony theme.  I guess it gives you points in the pop music bracket which might go well with the audience of people that don’t listen to anything other than top 40 but it just seemed off to me.  I would have had ALL the music come from the live players who are more than able sitting in those seats.  I would also burn any keyboards or synths.  It does not make this kind of music sound better.  PS I love electronica, I just don’t know how well it mixes with a symphony.

In the end they didn’t actually play that much music and the music they played didn’t have much time to do anything interesting.  From what music that was played it was mixed badly as in I couldn’t hear the symphony and the arrangements were off.  They had a childrens choir and for one song they sounded fine.  For a Civilization medley they really were quite bad.  I get that kids don’t really pay much attention to staying on tempo but for 40 dollars a ticket I don’t expect to watch amateurs.  Then again, kids choirs are cheaper than a professional adult one, but it just lended itself to the overall poor quality of the show in general.

In the Video Games Live description it likens itself to a “rock show” and that may be somewhat accurate if the band stopped each song and talked for 10 minutes about stupid doldrum.  It would also be true if most rock shows weren’t about music, but they are.   In fact, I saw NiN recently and Trent barely said anything.  It was a few hours of solid rock and roll.  The lighting was great, the ambiance was incredible and the music was fantastic.  Video Games Live is a amateurish attempt to bring legitimacy to Video Game Music.

I love Video Games.  I really do.  I love music.  I really do.  I disliked Video Games live.  I think I disliked it more than otherwise because its the only thing I know of trying to “do legit video game music”  But I don’t give it points because its the only thing out there.  I won’t like something because I need to “help out” the geek community.

Also if you are trying to breed legitimacy to your art don’t start up the show saying something akin to: “I KNOW THE OREGON SYMPHONY IS PRETTY HIGH BROW BUT DON’T HESITATE TO SCREAM YOUR BRAINS OUT WHEN YOU LIKE SOMETHING, ITS TIME TO ROCK KIDDIES!  SOME PEOPLE SAY VIDEO GAME MUSIC IS JUST BEEPS AND BLOOPS.  SOME PEOPLE SAY VIDEO GAMES JUST CAUSE VIOLENCE!  I SAY NO WAY!”  I don’t mind people yelling at a show.  I don’t mind people enjoying themselves.  I do mind stupid “ra ra” ism and bad speaking and arguments.  First off of course video games effect people.  Sometimes that can manifest as violence, but mostly it just sparks creativity. But why bring it up at a concert?  Who cares.  Also, ive never heard anyone say much about video game music, I don’t think most people talk about it.  Hold on, ive had a handful of conversations about it and no one in those conversations thought it lacked artistic integrity.

Video Games Live did.  Thats why it was so painful to watch I left at the intermission.  Which is one nice hold over of a real syphony they did right.  Doing nothing at all.