PBS to air 90-minute Video Games Live performance

by Griffin McElroy on Jun 6th 2010 11:30AM

If you've yet to experience the profound orchestral magic of the Tommy Tallarico-fronted musical outfit Video Games Live, you'll soon have the opportunity to do so from the safety and comfort of your own home. The group recently announced it will perform a 90-minute special for PBS, which will debut July 31, and then air on various PBS affiliates across the country throughout August. We suggest contacting your local affiliate to find out if the special will come to your neck of the woods.

If you're planning on tuning in, you can check out the trailer posted after the jump to see what you're in for, or read this press release to see what games the orchestra will be sampling during its performance. We don't see Gitaroo Man on said list, but we're hoping that's just an unfortunate omission on behalf of the copywriter.

Source

Tags: music, PBS, Television, tommy-tallarico, Video-Games-Live

Reader Comments (61)

PBS is awesome!

Peanut Butter and Shloosh!

Surprisingly, I've found a few of my friends enjoy classical music! I don't know if it's a result of video games, but whatever gets them away from the crap they play on the radio these days, the better off they'll be...

I have begun to listen to movie- and game soundtrack and orchestral music more often lately. It makes even the most boring task seem epic in a way. And it's also great to have just in the background, when you're focusing on other things, and i find that much harder if the music is constantly trying to tell you something through repeated words.

the best music (and the ones that stand the test of time) never needed lyrics. even modern times, i don't give a shit what they are saying, as long as it sounds good. The words to thriller are nothing special, it is the killer beats that make it a classic.

May I recommend the, Skywalker Session Orchestra. It is the orchestra behind the series of Firefly, and now the popular game series of Uncharted.

heres the theme song .....:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um89ylS0PMM

Credit goes to http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/704548/uncharted-2s-music-maestro---an-interview-with-greg-edmonson.html

"Jonas Brothers are going to be the new Hanson."

gawd I hope not -_-

Thanks, JACKSY!

LOL

Old cello guy rocking out at 1:10. Awesome.

Also what song is playing at that time?

That's One Winged Angel from Final Fantasy VII.

From the little that played, it sounded like One-Winged Angel from FFVII, or, Sephiroth's theme. I could be wrong, so someone correct me if they can.

Oh right, thanks. I should've figured it out since they yell SEPHIROTH

I went to the concert in New Orleans that they taped for PBS, and it was an amazing and very nostalgic experience. I definitely recommend that you make it to a Video Games Live concert if it's in your town.

Something tells me a standing ovation is the norm at the end of these shows.

The live choir rendition of Baba Yetu (the Civ 4 theme) was the best thing they ever did, so I'm glad that's in.

loved the diversity. pleased to see PC games, ps2 games, and nintendo and halo all under the same roof.

When I saw Civ on the list of games I was hoping it would be Baba Yetu. That song always makes me happy.

I recommend going to one of these if you can. I went when they were last in Boston and 1) it was a great performance of a number of songs from a wide variety of games and 2) everyone there obviously has a shared love of games.

It was a lot of fun to nerd out in a way I don't usually get to.

Are you in/back to Boston for PAX East? Annual nerdouts now.

Oh I went, don't you worry. Had a good time and bought City of Heroes based on the presentation.

Bay Area to Receive Special Sneak Peek on June 7th!

Thank god for living in the Bay Area.

Thanks for mentioning this. I live in SF and would've never known without your help :)

It's on KQED at 7:30pm tomorrow night

Thanks for enjoying The Guardian Legend!

I assume they made a mistake in saying they will only be performing music from Chrono Cross and none from Chrono Trigger? :S

I'm yet to play the Chrono series but from what I gather the original game is miles better than the sequel.

I don't think that's a mistake. Chrono Cross' music is pretty highly regarded. I remember hearing its opening theme played by the Eminence quartet at Otakon 2007. The first violin part is quite memorable.

The Cross soundtrack is a masterpiece (the gameplay not as much). VGL started playing it within the last couple years I think. I nearly leapt to my feet when Tommy introduced it. 8 and 16 bit music takes a lot of effort to re-score for an orchestra, but you can buy sheet music for Cross no problem, because it was orchestrated to begin with.

VGL has an odd relationship with Square, due to Square having its own traveling bands. When they play Kingdom Hearts music, you will only see a reel of Disney movie footage (unless this changed recently, which would surprise me).

Anyway, you should play both games. Get CT on the PS1 or DS to start, and try to ignore the anime cutscenes. ;)

Also, if you haven't played the games, the music can't have the same impact. Hearing Frog's Theme from CT should make you choke up. :'-)
So get on that!

Chrono Cross is a badass game! Probably in my top five of all time. And it does have particularly nice music. I used to intentionally let it sit on the menu screen sometimes so i could fall asleep to the music.

I went to a VGL show last summer in my town. Their finale song was the Chrono Trigger theme.

They had the orchestra playing of course, but then _both_ Tommy and Jack bust out their guitars AND they had Flute Link playing with them.

I saw them when they came to Pittsburgh for round 2; it was absolutely amazing and I recommend that everybody go see it, given the chance. My girlfriend that has never played a game other than the Sims in her life even enjoyed it. It's just a fantastic experience, and I can't rave about it enough.

I played cello for 10 years, and although I loved Hall of the Mountain King and The Barber of the Seville, we never played anything like this.

I was there for the filming in New Orleans! This was a spectacular performance! The "father of video games," Ralph Baer, was there and several composers as well as some of the original vocalists to some great music. :D

If you at all like this stuff, you need to check it out!

Yeah, Griffin says "will perform," but this performance has already occurred and was filmed a few months ago, as I recall.

I'm still a bit miffed that there's no announced date for their future Seattle performance. It's been about 2 years, I think, since they last came, and I'm getting antsy.

I found out about VGL from the Joystiq CD giveaway. Thanks Joystiq for introducing me to them!

NO JAMIE LEE CURTIS. WoW is NOT equal to Avatar movie.

W.o.W.

It's a better reaction than saying that video games aren't art. It's a step upward, at least.

My former voice teacher Vangie is the voice of the ice queen. It'll be fun to finally get to see her perform it. And critique her. ;)

Remember to start off with something positive... then smack her with something harsh!

Makes me wish I still had PBS.

I've only seen this live once, so it'll be cool to see it on PBS without purcashing a ticket. And hopefully it'll be on Netflix, too, along with the other PBS specials.

At the concert they also announced that, besides the special on PBS, this will be available for purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD as well. No idea on a date though.

This is good news, but I'd rather a post closer to when it airs. I can't set recordings more than two weeks in advance on my DVR, and I'll probably forget about it by then :/

Damnit, Gitarooman foiled again!

As soon as music/rhythm games get back to being about the game and not the music then Gitaroo will have revenge. And Space Channel 5 will be right by its side. Of course Parappa will lead the charge.

Oh yeah, VG Live sounds nice too.

although i've turned my back on video game music (straight rips from the games) or cool remixes as music to listen to, i have always loved the classical and orchestra symphony and what they do for emotion in games. Personally the best music game soundtracks in history are all from japan, and probably lost a little power when graphics became all the rage in 04, 05'. To ME, the best music never needed lyrics to be good.

Yeah, for me the Japanese music at VGL was the best, while the North American and European stuff seemed like the composers were "just doing it for the paycheck."

I'm going to have to disagree with you guys. Most of my favourite videogame composers are European or American. I think that people like Chris Huelsbeck (who recently had a concert dedicated entirely to his music - http://www.symphonicshades.com/), Jeremy Soule (who does my favourite orchestral works, due to his more subtle approach - most tracks in Morrowind and Oblivion are not in the overly-grandiose "USE EVERY INSTRUMENT IN THE ORCHESTRA BECAUSE ITS EPIC" style that many other composers, both Japanese and Western, composers get seduced by), and Peter McConnell (Grim Fandango sounds absolutely unlike any other game out there) are better than any Japanese composer you'd care to name.

i'd say western RPG's always had good music going for them. Oblivion did have great tunes.

@Vork, we're talking about composers' works presented at VGL though. Specifically, I was talking about the VGL concert I went to, where none of the composers you mentioned were featured. The VGL concert I went to focused too much on games that are popular, and not on games with good music. Halo, all the Blizzard games, all the God of War games... they have mediocre music. But they're really popular so I guess they felt obligated to play their soundtracks at the concert :(

But, I do like a lot of Jeremy Soule's newer stuff (I forgot Oblivion had any music at all though). I like the Total Annihilation, Guild Wars, and Knights of the Old Republic stuff he's done.

And assuming McConnel was responsible for it, I liked TIE Fighter's tunes. But so much of that was inspired by John Williams' original stuff that I'm not sure how much I would've enjoyed it by itself. Never played any of the adventure games the guy has worked on, so can't comment on that.

Michael Giacchino is also a good composer, but he seems to have left the video game world for good.

@GuardianLegend

Fair enough. I do agree that Halo and World of Warcraft have pretty mediocre soundtracks. But then, I also think Final Fantasy VII is also pretty bad.

Personally, I've been to both VGL and Play concerts and vastly prefer the latter. They tend to branch out more and play more obscure music - they've done Commodore 64 medleys and music from The Darkness, for instance. It seems that they're more willing to let good compositions speak for themselves, even if half the audience might not be aware of the games they came from, rather than just sticking to the well-known music.

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PBS to air 90-minute Video Games Live performance

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