Bowling for Video Games

Last night I had the pleasure and the pain of seeing the premiere of Video Games Live at the Hollywood Bowl. Yes, the very first concert to feature music composed for the gaming medium...fun huh? You would think so, what with all of the Nintendo shirts, geek glasses, electronic sidekicks, Atari retrowear, and families that were in attendance. However, that was not completely the case. Someone in the video game world putting on this show got it into their head that just like the Beastie Boys on Grammy night, they too, wanted to send a political message telling people that they were just as socially savy as their compatriots in the rest of the music industry.

Here’s what this genius did:

During the music for Medal of Honor (a rather realistic looking WWII game that Steven Spielberg helped design) the presenters of Video Games Live decided to put real images of WWII on the onstage screen. The host for the evening, composer Tommy Tallarico (Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Advent, Earthworm Jim) says to the audience something to the effect of, ‘Videogames get a bad wrap for being violent, here are some images of war, but they are not graphic.’ Yet they go on to show airplanes bombing cities, the bombed out remains of what look to me to be Hiroshima or Nagasaki, painfully thin victims of Hitler’s concentration camps, children on buses leaving their weeping parents behind, huddled masses of cold people staring at the camera looking shellshocked, no this is not at all graphic or violent.

I’m sorry, but where is the rating for this concert!!! At least at movies like Saving Private Ryan and The Pianist, I know what I am walking into. At a show like Video Games Live, you expect to be at a family friendly venue. At this point in life I have no children of my own, but I do have a 19 year old nephew, who have watched grow up, and I have friends and family with young children too. It would’ve been nice if Tommy Tallarico had been honest, and said that although this footage was not bloody and brutally graphic, that the content was somewhat hard to watch and it might be advisable for parents with small children to take them outside.

Now, bear with me, because here is where I become a complete and utter hypocrite. My favorite Video Game composition and visual lighting display persented in the show last night (and don’t let my tirade stop you from going, it was a revolutionary idea, as well as a delightful artist endeavor and very enjoyable overall) was from a game I had never hear of or seen before called G-d of War. This game is violent, but it’s fantasy violence with minotaurs, fighting skeletons, a hydra, and various creatures that looked to be drawn from Greek mythology. Incredibley beautiful and beautifully scored to boot, this was an amazing performance to watch. The Bowl was a creative venue that added to the G-d of War presentation because the illumination was such that you felt the main character was spiraling down into the very pits of hell amid the red swirling lights that moved over the circular disks of the procenium arch. It was absolutely spectacular.

There was one guy in the audience the stole the show though. He was rocking back and forth to every single musical interlude except the Final Fantasy solo piano. This boy did not have eyes for anyone or anything other then the laser lights, video screens, orchestra, and music. He was digging that music like it was running a direct beat to his soul. It made me laugh and my boyfriend laugh, but then I felt mildly bad because I thought, “Hey, what if he’s autistic”. No way, he was just a kid TOTALLY INTO the LA Phil doing Video Game Tunes!!! Super cool, super funny too! One of those, gotta see it moments, I swear!