Scenes From My Youth: Now Orchestrated!

Last week I finally received the opportunity to spend time in the company of a couple thousand fellow nerds when I dragged the wife along to Video Games Live in Vancouver. (Truth be told, my woman watched the PBS special on VGL and immediately demanded that her next birthday present be the chance to see it in person. I can't say I was disappointed to hear that.)

We arrived in Vancouver and dropped off our belongings (and dog) at our hotel a couple of blocks from the concert, ate dinner, then walked on over to the show venue an hour before curtain time.

The building was full of nerds, LARPers, geeks, gamers, role playing gamers, goths, and all the other societal misfits that you expect at such an event. From what I saw the ages ranged from ten to about early-to-mid forties, revealing that I was truly amongst my element.

The show started with a costume contest that had about nine people dressed up as various video game characters. As the contestants walked out on the stage, they were led a couple of girls in spandex outfits, dressed up as Psylocke and Rogue from the X-Men, and I immediately assumed they would win the contest. Girls in tight clothes, dressed up like popular comic book characters - how could they lose? However, the judge of the contest was the crowd, which was filled with video game nerds, not regular people. The winner of the competition was selected by who could prompt the loudest cheers from the audience. Although the superheroines placed well, they were ousted by the mob's favorite costume: a tall, lanky kid dressed up in a pretty good recreation of Altaïr ibn La-Ahad from Assassin's Creed. Other noteable costumes were a young woman dressed up as Tifa from FFVII, a gentleman with an imaginative splicer costume from Bioshock, Doctor Mario, and a very well done Link from Legend Of Zelda.

The music began with in medly of early video games, starting with Pong, then moving on to classic music from Space Invaders, Asteriods, Pac-Man, Tank, Defender, Frogger, Battlezone, Centipede, Guantlet, Ghosts 'N Goblins, and a whole range of arcade games from Dragon's Lair to Outrun. I lost track of the huge number of games represented during this montage.

What followed was a grand collection of orchestrated music (with a choir performing vocal work) from some of the greatest video game franchises in gaming history, including Mario Bros, Castlevania, the Legend Of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, God Of War, Tetris, World Of Warcraft, Sonic The Hedgehog, Halo, Street Fighter II, Final Fantasy, and Silent Hill.

Interspersed between the longer songs played by the symphony were short video clips such as mashups (Donkey Kong vs. Mortal Kombat was my favorite) and top ten lists of the worst video game titles and most painful voice acting in a game.

There were also solo performances, with video game pianist Martin Leung playing the theme from Super Mario Brothers while blindfolded, followed by a medly of music from the Final Fantasy series. Laura Intravia played a suite of themes from the Legend Of Zelda on her flute (while dressed up as Link, and competing against Navi, a doll attached to her shoulder by a wire).

There were so many musical standouts from the show that it was difficult to select a favorite. The God Of War theme, accompanied by video clips from the series, was every bit as epic and intense as the games themselves. Laura Intravia crafted an amazing performance as Lady Silvanas during Lament Of The Highborne from World Of Warcraft. One Winged Angel from FFVII was every bit as spectacular live as someone coule hoped for. Finally, the second encore to finish off the evening was Tommy Talarico and Laura hosting an enjoyable sing-along with the crowd to Still Alive from Portal.

There were lots of entertaining non-musical moments that were worth noting, as well. Tommy had people hold up their cell phones instead of lighters to show support for a slower song, when he noticed somebody in the back waving a laptop. When it was pointed out the machine was a Mac, the crowd booed loudly, and Tommy commented, "You can't play games on that, can you?" There were funny and timely catchphrases and commentary called out from the crowd as well, such as "The cake is a lie!" as the intro video to Still Alive began; another person lamented "My car!" at the end of the Frogger Vs Grand Theft Auto mashup; and (in response to Tommy stating that "some people believe video games cause violence"), "Kill those people!"

My wife and I both enjoyed ourselves, and will attend VGL again at some point. It was nice to spend an evening reminiscing about the games I played growing up, presented in a relatively mature manner. Although gaming has become much more mainstream than when I was young, and I certainly can't devote the same amount of playing time and effort I used to give games, it was still nice to share the experience of classic and new gaming with a small horde of fellow video game lovers.

If you're a video game geek and you haven't experienced Video Games Live, I recommend heading to a show, or at least taking a peek at it on PBS or Youtube.

Vancouver In Review

It's been a week since I returned from a work-related excursion to Vancouver. A week doing Cisco training isn't what I usually envision as a great way to spend time in the city, but I did attempt to make the best of it. Substituting beer for meals in brewpubs turned out to be a great way to spend afternoons. I went with four coworkers, but I spent most of the time visiting with friends and recovering from a cold the last evening of the week, so I really only joined them on two evenings after training.

I was happy to spend Tuesday and Wednesday evening meeting up with a couple of friends that I knew in high school, but hadn't seen in 13 and 15 years. It's fascinating the way our personalities have stayed relatively static, but horizons and viewpoints (not to mention waistlines) for all three of us have widened a lot since those days when all three of us shared very religious teen years.

Subjects of discussion ranged from what each of us has been doing since we last met up, to how our religious views have changed (for the record: one of us is now an atheist, one is now a quasi-Christian that doesn't believe in religion, and the last is still very religious, but much more of a Liberal Christian), our work histories during that time, and of course, what we know or have heard about the fates of other friends or church fellows from those days. It was surprising how easy it was to spend three to four hours on both evenings just chatting away and catching up. I also found it curious how quickly each of us seemed to re-establish our friendship, almost as though we'd been together only a month or so previously, rather than up to fifteen years ago. Of course, lubricating ourselves with Leffe and Granville Island Pale Ale certainly didn't hurt the discussion!

The second best part of being in Van, after catching up with old friends, was trying out different pubs. The first night we arrived at the hotel on Granville, my coworkers and I located Johnnie Fox's Irish Snug only a block away. We pretty much went there every afternoon after work, where I would down a couple of pints of Guinness, while my coworkers would order Guinness & blacks. When we first walked in, I wondered just how authentically Irish the pub was, but after a couple of glasses, while taking in the live Celtic music, we realized that almost everyone in the place had an Irish accent, except us! I'll take that as a pretty good sign that our Guinness was being poured properly, and that the Irish stew I ordered was as Irish as it could be!

I also got the chance to head down to the Irish Heather to try out their cask aged ale, and to marvel at their selection of over 250 whiskies. The absolute topper, however, was the Alibi Room, and their twenty-five taps of microbrewed ales, plus three cask aged ales to choose from. There wasn't a single Molson, Labatt, or Budweiser in sight! Coupled with an excellent, and relatively reasonably priced menu, the Alibi Room was a little slice of beer snob heaven!
All in all, it was a fun trip, and a coworker let slip that I might wind up heading back for some more Cisco training in Vancouver before the end of March. Now that I have a few haunts to choose from, I'm actually looking forward for my next chance to head down to Van!