Alright so, this is fucking incredible. If you are any sort of a video game fan, you HAVE to see this at least once in your life.
Doors opened an hour and a half before showtime for the pre-show, which was basically an excuse for everyone to stand around the lobby and drink/buy shit... for an hour and a half. But there was also a Guitar Hero competition going down, person with the highest score playing Van Halen's "Jump" on Hard got "a special surprise." This was unfortunately, not me, though I did try.
Once the actual auditorium opened up, went in and got my seat, which turned out to be a perfect seat. I got a 20$ seat for an X-mas present, which had me in the back of the bottom floor (there was a bottom section and two top sections) and right in the middle of the view of the stage, absolutely perfect spot:
Right before the 'official' start of the show, they showed well, this on the video wall:
Video Games Live 2009 - Homenagem a Michael Jackson
Everyone had pretty much gotten their seats once that finished, and then this played:
Ms. Pacman Music Video - The Go! Team
The show officially started with a clip of Pong (complete with "bleep" sound effects done by the orchestra), which merged into an awesome compilation of old-school classic games and songs. There was a group of reeeeaaallly annoying teenagers a few rows ahead of me who cheered and screamed REALLY LOULDY at everything. I doubt they even knew what half the shit they were cheering for WAS, but it seemed like anytime anyone else cheered, these tools felt like they HAD to one-up everyone else.
After the classic montage and the opening bit, we were introduced (via video) by Hideo Kojima to the
Konami Kode Metal Gear Solid medley. During the medley, a guy dressed in a ninja outfit with a toy gun came out onto the stage, with a guy in a cardboard box following behind him and doing the 'sneaking' bit from the game (which included a hilarious bit where they actually had a "!" pop up above the ninja's head. The ninja slunk off sad-faced as the tune ended, and then Tommy popped out from under the box.
Up next was a Sonic Medley. Annoying female #1 from the annoying teenagers SCREAMED out "YAY SONIC!" everytime the clip changed, which was often. Oh yeah, the TSO choir actually did the "SEGA!" bit when the medley started, which kinda freaked everyone out for a second until we all started laughing.
After the Sonic piece, they brought out Martin Lueng, who if you've never heard of him (I hadnt) he's apparently famous on the internets for playing SMB music on the piano blindfolded. This guy is INSANE. He did do the SMB blindfolded bit, but first he was out to do an FF7 Piano medley which was just... bad ass. The guy's fingers move over the piano at amazing speed.
Next up, Tommy decided they were gonna 'do something different' (a phrase he used alot). He picked a kid out of the crowd (unfortunately ALSO from the Annoying Teenage Douchbags crew), whose name I forget but the main thing he was 18 years old and as Tommy put it, "the game you're about to play was made 14 years before you were even born!"
So yeah, the kid was brought up on stage, and the deal was he was gonna play Spaced Invaders, while the TSO played the music from the game, and if he could beat the first level in under two minutes he'd win a prize. But the twist was that HE was the ship, so he had to move across the stage while the game was playing, moving his ship, and pressing a button to fire.
Motherfucker was offered a limited edition rare as fuck Arcade console that played up to 5000 GAMES, only to FAIL in spectacular fashion. You could clearly tell neither he nor his douchebag friends screaming for him in the audience had ANY clue what he was doing. Was pretty funny.
Then they did what Tommy called the "Most requested set at all shows," a double-shot of Crono Trigger/Crono Cross themes, which was probably my favorite just for fanboyism alone. They followed that up with a Zelda comp introduced by Koji Konda (annoying teenage female #1 would randomly scream "YAY KOJI!" anytime he appeared on screen, which was quite a few times.) before cutting to intermission.
After intermission, they kicked things off right with the one thing that had been missing all afternoon, SUPER MARIO BROS~! Which then led to Martin being brought back out (in which annoying teenage female #1 screamed "I LOVE YOU MARTY!") and doing the Blindfolded SMB music he was 'known' for, which was again, insane to watch, After doing the full theme blindfolded he ripped the blindfold off and played a shitload of (I think) SMB2 songs which were even MORE crazy to watch him do. That shit got the first standing ovation of the day. And as Martin started to walk off the stage Tommy called him back AGAIN, to do the TETRIS theme. The guy is fucking insane, seriously.
After Martin was FINALLY allowed to leave (for the moment) they played a World of Warcraft medley. I dont play WOW so it wasnt really thrilling me nostalgia wise but it was still pretty cool.
Up next, they called the winner of the Pre-show's Guitar Hero competition onto the stage, where he (incredibly, ALSO a part of the Annoying Teenage Douchebag fanclub), got to play the game on the stage, while Tommy played along on his real guitar and the orchestra played the rest of the instruments. The kid was originally supposed to play "Jump!" on Hard but he 'requested' to play it on expert instead. (I say 'requested' because I think this is actually part of the show itself, the requesting a higher difficulty. IE - they tell you to request it)
Tommy tells the kid if he can get 175,000 points he wins a prize, which the kid killed (243,000 was his end score I think). That was a fun thing to watch.
From here I have trouble remembering some of the things (I know they played more than I remember, but I cant remember what the others were) but I do know Tommy stayed out with his guitar after the GH bit, and he and Jack (the conductor/also co-creator of the show) played along with the TSO on their guitars to a METROID medley, which was awesome.
They followed it up with HALO, with Tommy still playing the guitar, which was pretty fun too.
Again, I know they did more than that, but I can't remember right now, but Halo was the 'end' of the show. I put end in quotes because Tommy and Jack had the TSO stand and they all took a bow, but NOBODY in the audience moved (besides standing up for the standing O), and the lights didn't come up nor did the doors open. But the guys walked off stage waiting for the 'encore' chants and eventually came back. (Tommy: Okay, NOW I'm really ready to go, with my Spidey Guitar!
)
The first encore they played was a metal version of One Winged Angel, which was just awesome with the choir singing along. This was kinda funny because after OWA ended the entire crowd stood up and gave another standing ovation, figuring it was over, until Tommy asked if we wanted one more. Of course, we did. So Tommy brought Martin back out for what seemed like the 8th time, and told him "fire up that organ effect, you know the one."
Which led to probably the best medley of the night, CASTLEVANIA! That was some epic shit.
The funny part I mentioned above came because after standing and applauding for the two fake endings, barely anybody stood for the 'finale.' Not that we werent appreciative, I just dont think anyone actually expected it to REALLY end... and then it did.
So yeah, this was a fucking amazing show which everyone needs to see. It's really hard to really explain what happened unless you were there, but fuck, it was the coolest thing this poster has ever seen.
