Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater "The Snake Eater's Palace, Outer Heaven (VGM CON 2025 Live Version)" 2:31

Metal Gear Solid's all about the art of surreptitiousness, so let's sneak in a quick one with a live event performance! From VGM CON 2025 in Minneapolis this past April, Audio Mocha teamed with AnimeVivi and endlessrepeat for their funky spin on a modern classic, Metal Gear Solid 3's titular theme, "Snake Eater"! For Audio Mocha, putting out a live release was a creative stretch goal:

"For a while, I had "Snake Eater" in my head but as a funky kind of tune. I've been more active on TikTok the past few months with performing little snippets of game music and I thought to finally do "Snake Eater". I whipped up a backing track for it in Band-in-a-Box and put out a little video, not thinking much about it. Little did I expect that it ended up being my biggest video ever by a massive shot and ended up getting tons of requests to make a full version, which was something I was more than happy to do since I absolutely love Metal Gear Solid 3! The one funny part that I didn't expect but then came to realize is how much people would associate my take on "Snake Eater" with Persona 5. Even though I love Persona, I had never made the connection with my version of "Snake Eater" so when I recorded it, all I thought was "This is what MGS3 would sound like if it was a blaxploitation movie like Shaft". When everyone online started drawing parallels to Persona, I started to see it and then started getting images in my head of a young Solid Snake infiltrating Big Boss's palace and this being the music that played in the dungeon. These visions are what finally got me to realize the perfect title for this remix, since before my project name for it was just "Funky Snake Eater", so, in a huge way, the community helped me get a clearer vision of my track.

With the pressure of releasing something soon and with a few VGM gigs coming, particularly VGM CON 2025, I thought to myself "I've never done a live song release before, let's try that out". It especially helped that since I've gotten into the habit of running my live VGM shows out of my laptop and lightly managing the sound from there so every performance actually ends up recorded anyway. What made it specially fun is that I'd be performing with two friends of mine, AnimeVivi and endlessrepeat, so I fleshed out a more comprehensive arrangement of "Snake Eater" to include more of the calls and responses from the original song for them to perform with me. We had a great time during the gig and, despite a few hiccups, I ended up with a pretty good set of both audio stems and MIDI play data to work with. After doing a bit of cleanup and feedback from GameGrooves (since by pure luck, they were having the Summer of Sony for 2025 and "Snake Eater" was eligible for it), I finally have our recording of our live performance of "The Snake Eater's Palace, Outer Heaven"! Hope you enjoy!"

Fun fact, though this isn't the first live concert ReMix I've been present for, this IS the first live concert ReMix where every judge who voted on the track also attended the performance in person. :-D Judge prophetik music was the last scene friend I got to say goodbye to as we parted ways at the airport post VGM CON, and I also got to thank him in person for the immeasurable impact he's had on the panel's progress, as we've nearly cleared the submissions queue for the first time since 2007. Voting on this trio's track definitely didn't cause proph any consternation:

"beat hits pretty quickly, and the clavinet is perfect for this style. it's got a nice tight shuffle right away, and it's immediately recognizable as the original. the switch to cymbals at 0:31 is nice. [...] there's a solo section after this, and i really like the lyrical approach that you took to it. 1:30 goes right back to the tune, and trucks through a more stylized version of the melodic lead. there's a bit of an outro starting at 2:13, and it's done. [...] what's here is fun and fresh. an easy vote =)"

Fellow judge Hemophiliac was also on hand for the show and kindly hipped a brother to our fun fact, i.e. this successful sub actually being witnessed by all of its evaluators:

"We were there! Sweet to hear this one live on the day, and really cool to see it now as a submission.

The live recording came out really well. The drums in particular are crystal clear. Endless is invisible in the best way possible, supporting without overpowering. [...]

Fun performance, absolutely fresh take. Easy vote."

It was a short and sweet vote from we Js with how straightforward this call was, which was a beautiful thing (and well-earned). I was glad to also be there for your VGM COM set this year, Mocha! Who knew it would culminate with having this shine here as a featured ReMix. :-) Now that I think about it, the collective VGM arrangement scene really doesn't have THAT many recordings of live performances out there; it feels like a frontier that's yet to be opened up, but I hope live concert recordings and releases can become easier and more commonplace so we don't miss out on reliving moments such as these from Mocha, Vivi, and endless. I'll co-sign with proph on Mocha's lead work feeling very lyrical as well as with Hemo on the mixing really letting everyone's parts synergize. The fun easily shines through here with these spirited performances!

P.S. I'm putting a public tickler here too to nag (my fellow Golden Girls enthusiast) brentalfloss re: possibly collabing with Audio Mocha on a potential cumbia piece. This should happen!