Geekman's World: The Transpirings of the Geekend

I kind of skipped over the weekend report on Monday morning. To keep you all apprised, here's how things went down. Saturday night was our Batman Halloween party. The cast was as follows: myself as the Joker, Steph as Batman, Jen as Robin, Iain as the Riddler (or the Green Hornet depending on how many question marks you noticed), Angela as Poison Ivy. Danielle made the freaky choice of coming as "anti-Danielle": a disturbingly pink alternate universe version of herself. Pictures will be posted once I collect them all from the guests.

Sunday night Angela and myself went to Video Games Live: an orchestral concert of video game music. The concert opened with a medley of early Atari and Nintendo music, starting with the "blip bloop" of a pair of Pong paddles (scenes from the games in question were displayed on a giant projector screen). There were some great performances. I have to say that I was very struck by the medley of music from Metal Gear Solid; it's main theme gorgeously sounded by full orchestra and choir at the very end of the piece. Also impressive were the compilations of themes from Tron, The Legend of Zelda, Medal of Honor, and Warcraft. The concert ended with the theme from Halo, which was given excellent treatment by the musicians.

Unfortunately, the overall sense was of one of those concerts where half of the material is incredibly awesome, and half of the material is shameful filler. There were some games that I'd never played or even heard of, and given my attention to the gaming industry these past few years, I can be reasonably sure that they were not bestsellers. The arrangements of themes from Super Mario Bros and Sonic the Hedgehog were painfully lackluster, and included only about three themes from the original games, omitting plenty of much more memorable music while supplying uninspired orchestration. Themes from Final Fantasy and Everquest were not on the program, despite being advertised as such. VGL is a great idea, and I hope to see it become an annual or biannual event. It's worth noting, however, that there's a lot of room for improvement.

I only ask because this sort of event places things geeky in a very...well not mainstream but certainly more culturally acceptable light. Were the organizers looking to put a more mature and polished look on this generally immature sub-culture or were they hamming it up?

I'm sorry I couldn't attend this year's big halloween bash. I'll be sure to get in on the festivities next year.

Tickets were $45. As for the geekiness of the audience, allow me to gesture to the guy in the front row with the replica lightsaber and the cosplayers vying for costume prizes as points of reference. There were some hyperactive kids near me who couldn't have been older than 12, but by their conversation I could tell that they were familiar with the classic SNES games, so I tolerated their presence.

There was some hamming by the MC, which I think was unavoidable. Generally the concert was conducted (pun intended) in a proper manner. I suspect nepotism was involved in some of the musical selections, but what can I expect from such an event.

Oh yes, I forgot! Steph's sister is visiting from Winnipeg and she was Alfred. She even answered the door.


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