Nerds

Kevin and I listen to a lot of talk radio and had noticed ads for the Utah Symphony's concert of video game music. The inner nerds in us thought it sounded like an interesting idea, so we booked tickets and decided to go. Our 6th anniversary is on Sunday, so if we needed a reason to justify spending the money, that became it.

We congregated with all the nerds at Abravanel Hall, which was festooned with three large screens mid-air above the orchestra. The middle screen was a close-up of the conductor, the orchestra, the choir, etc. (Yes, some of this game music has ooooo's and ahhhhhhhhh's which would require a choir).

We heard a variety of songs accompanied by clips of the games on the other two screens. Music selections included the following: Super Mario Bros, Lost Odyssey, Sonic the Hedgehog, Battlefield, Shenmue, Castlevania, Kingdom Hearts, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Chrono Trigger, World of Warcraft, Halo, and the Legend of Zelda. I was only really familiar with Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda, but found myself enjoying some of the others. I was actually impressed to hear what great orchestrations have been composed for something so seemingly unlikely such as a video game. Kevin's favorite was Kingdom Hearts, which is one of his favorite games. He had hoped and expected them to play Final Fantasy, but they didn't.

It definitely wasn't the "usual" symphony crowd. We saw one girl dressed as Poison Ivy (?) See if you can figure that out. All in all, it was fun. There is something about a live symphony that really affects you. We are already scoping out the season to see something else we can go see.