Video Games Live, London '08

[Faulken]

Well, I made it to VG Live for the first time this year, Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico's show with the English Chamber Orchestra and choir, Martin Leung (the video game Pianist) and for some numbers Tallarico leading on guitar.

Anyone else make it to this show, either in England, or with tickets for when it returns back States side?

I had tons of fun-they opened with Metal Gear Solid, had some pre-recorded 'codec calls' from David Hayter introducing the show, and a hilarious cosplayer of an MGS soldier, complete with a spring loaded ! that popped above his head during a dramatic part of the music.

The little shows like that, the stuff playing on the projector screen and the random audience involvement for competitions really gave it a fantastically fun atmosphere on top of just the great music.

Castlevania music made for an epic finale, with Tallarico leading on guitar. One Winged Angel and Halo renditions were amazingly epic live.

Plenty of other stuff, but the other most noteworthy thing was meeting Tallarico, Wall and a bunch of other game composers in a panel after the show.

The guy who did the Donkey Kong Country soundtracks was there, and Richard Jacques of Jet Set Radio and Sonic R fame was also there; I had a fairly long amusing conversation with him about Super Sonic Racing .

Spoke to Tallarico himself, asking if they had any Mega Man stuff in the works for future shows, he said that they were working on a medley of music from 2 and 3 (including 2's Wily Castle).

Also for his 250+ game soundtracks, highlighted Metroid Prime, saying I love the Phendrana Drifts music asking if he'd heard many mixes of his work, which he had.

For one of the competitions they were giving away a dvd or CD or something with 500 plus OCremixes, which made me think about whether DJPretzel or the other head people around here like Zircon or LionTamer had anything to do with this event State side? Given how the show largely had the tone of promoting the cultural significance of game music, and how it's not just a bunch of beeps and bloops, it did seem very much in the same sort of vein as OCremix to me.

I did think it was a shame there was no OCremix precense there for it here in the UK if that is the case, but I guess it can't be avoided-I don't even know if you guys have any direct involvement, or if any of your big mixers are my side of the pond.

Oh and last but not least, while I was there, I picked up Video Games Live the album, Volume 1. Awesome stuff-Tallarico said something about that being actually surprisingly high in sales charts in America-did you guys get it on general release over there?

[Liontamer]

Dave Wise and Richards Jacques were there? Bah. Too many "wow, that's cool shit" events to be jealous of lately.

For one of the competitions they were giving away a dvd or CD or something with 500 plus OCremixes, which made me think about whether DJPretzel or the other head people around here like Zircon or LionTamer had anything to do with this event State side? Given how the show largely had the tone of promoting the cultural significance of game music, and how it's not just a bunch of beeps and bloops, it did seem very much in the same sort of vein as OCremix to me.

djp worked out the specifics and will correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC, that was all Tommy's idea, and he generously provided the costs of making all of the CDs and going above and beyond the call of duty to promote the site during the concerts as well. And yeah, that's because Tommy's as big on proving the staying power of VGM as many of us. djp provided the design for the disc labels. The creation of the VGL/OCR promo CDs is one of the reasons we were asking people to get the hell on board with the Content Policy, because for physical (non-profit, of course) distribution, we really wanted everyone to be on board and have the chance to have their music heard.

I did think it was a shame there was no OCremix precense there for it here in the UK if that is the case, but I guess it can't be avoided-I don't even know if you guys have any direct involvement, or if any of your big mixers are my side of the pond.

Yeah, we actually have a really solid UK presence, so some people MAY have attended, but I have no idea. 2 judges, Malcos and Fishy, are British, then there's several other ReMixers like Binster, A Scholar & A Physician, RichBRF, DistantJ, Rexy, BenCousins, Chris Abbott, Ellywu2, Liquid Neon, and Nick Singer. Dunno, but someone in that group could have attended. Too bad I never saw anyone do a meetup thread.

Oh and last but not least, while I was there, I picked up Video Games Live the album, Volume 1. Awesome stuff-Tallarico said something about that being actually surprisingly high in sales charts in America-did you guys get it on general release over there?

Yeah, I'm sure it's done fairly decently; the release on the EMI Classics label potentially helped. After the massive starts and stops it had, I'm glad it actually did well. Anything that enhances the acceptance of VGM as viable art is good!

[Blue123]

Awww, man. I seriously wanted to go to this as well, but couldn't. Sounds like I missed out on a lot of fun. Just, err, out of interest, anywhere I might be able to pick up the album?

[Liontamer]

Awww, man. I seriously wanted to go to this as well, but couldn't. Sounds like I missed out on a lot of fun. Just, err, out of interest, anywhere I might be able to pick up the album?

Well, if you wanna purchase it online, http://astore.amazon.com/overclocked02-20/detail/B000VO8O6W, we receive 6% to pay for bandwidth, and it doesn't cost you anything extra.

[Blue123]

Well, if you wanna purchase it online, http://astore.amazon.com/overclocked02-20/detail/B000VO8O6W, we receive 6% to pay for bandwidth, and it doesn't cost you anything extra.

Thanks! I've never checked but can I have things bought from amazon.com shipped to the UK? Or will it have to go through another party?

[Fishy]

Well maybe if someone had brought this up before the show I could have been the official presence .