Video Games Live is a show for everyone to see. Whether you're a hardcore gamer or casual gamer, you will leave this show stunned. The show consists of a local orchestra, a local choir, and video game action on screen during the performance. Video Games Live is hosted by Tommy Tallarico.

Upon arriving to Video Games Live, I was presented with the pre-show festival. There, gamers can sit back and enjoy their favorite video games before the show starts. There was one game station for each console. Among the games were Punchout (Wii), NHL 09 (PS3) and Midnight Club: Los Angeles (Xbox 360). The show also featured a Guitar Hero competition where gamers can try their skills to get the highest score and ultimately participate in a Guitar Hero face-off on stage. There were also a lot of other features, including entry to a costume contest, a merchandise booth and a drawing for a Nintendo DSi.

Video Games Live is about the concert, however. Music from popular games such as Pong, Halo, Castlevania, Metal Gear, World of Warcraft and more were being played live in front of a massive audience. Video Games Live takes the local orchestra and local choir to act out these tracks, and the show was amazing. One of my favorite tracks being Castlevania where Tommy Tallarico jumped on Guitar while the crowd screamed out, "Hey, Hey, Hey" during parts of the song.

They also had the popular video game Pianist Martin Leung, who played Super Mario, Final Fantasy, and other popular game tracks. The remarkable aspect of this is that the pianist performed the Super Mario theme blindfolded. An incredible performance. You can see him playing Super Mario blindfolded at the show, and here on YouTube.

A couple of games were also played during the show, the first one being Space Invaders. Tommy Tallarico (Host), chose one person from the audience to come up on stage and play. The audience member then had to put on a shirt with the Space Invaders ship on the back and was given a button to press. The way he moved was by physically moving left and right on stage and to fire he would have to press the button the was given to him. It was very exciting, and the person almost beat it with only one ship to go.

The second game was Guitar Hero, where they grabbed the winner of the Guitar Hero competition in the pre-show festival to go play on stage in front of the orchestra. The winner had to play "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith against a winner from a local game shop. The experience of it all was very thrilling and both played very well!

I would gladly see this show again soon. If you would like to attend Video Games Live, head over to the official web site to find out where they will be playing next. With three shows played in 2005, 11 shows played in 2006, 29 shows in 2007, and 47 shows in 2008, there are plenty of shows planned for 2009 and 2010, so make sure you check it out at VideoGamesLive.com.

Interview with Tommy Tallarico

I had an interview with Video Games Live Host Tommy Tallarico when they reached Kelowna, BC on May 20th. We received some exclusive information regarding the future projects on Video Games Live. Tommy Tallarico also hinted that he may be performing with his cousin, Steven Tyler, who is the lead singer for Aerosmith in the near future, so maybe we'll see him on stage sometime.

GamingBits: What is your favorite video game of all time?

Tommy Tallarico: Super Mario World for the SNES, I think its Miyamoto to his perfection. The jump, the controls, the graphics, the music. Just everything about the design and the characters. Everything about it to me was a perfect game. If I can only play one more game for the rest of my life, it would probably be that one.

GamingBits: If you could be any video game character, who would you be and why?

Tommy Tallarico: Hmm... Let me see that's a good one... Umm... probably Solid Snake because he gets all the chicks (laughter). He gets to play with big guns and gets to score with all the hotties. Unlike Mario, Y'know because I am probably most like Mario because I am short and Italian.

GamingBits: What is your favorite video game music to perform or act out at Video Games Live.

Tommy Tallarico: Probably Castlevania. We do a really rocked out version of Castlevania. It's the most fun for me because I get to play guitar, I also do a version of "One winged angel." It's kind of like the Advent Children version because i have the guitar in it.

GamingBits: You must be a gamer considering you run this show, but how much time do you actually get to play games?

Tommy Tallarico: Luckily I got an iTouch, a DS and a PSP. Because we're on the road a lot, on our tour bus we have our PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360. So we're always playing on the bus or the plane.

GamingBits: Are you a fan of Pokemon and are there plans to make Pokemon part of the setlist?

Tommy Tallarico: Pokemon, y'know I'm 41 years old, I missed out on the whole Pokemon thing. That being said though, we are going to be putting Pokemon on our show. So, I've been familiarizing myself with the battle music and the stuff like that. So we will be putting Pokemon, this is exclusive by the way, on the show. On a personal level however, I kind of missed out on that Pokemon craze, I was a little too old when it was big, so I never got into it too much.

GamingBits: What is your most memorable event at Video Games Live?

Tommy Tallarico: Playing in front of 100,000 people in Taiwan was pretty memorable. Anytime we play in Brazil, they lose their frickin' minds. I would have to say every event is pretty remarkable. Probably the most remarkable thing was the first time we played in Taiwan. It was during the Olympics and China wouldn't allow Taiwan to show its flag during the Olympics, during the opening ceremony, or whenever anyone won. So, we were playing during the Olympics and a lot of people in Taiwan were depressed a little bit because of this whole thing. So for the encore, me and Jack (co-creator) came out with a Taiwan flag and the whole place erupted. Like, people we're literally crying in the isles. We heard screams and noise that we never heard before. It was truly amazing.

Thanks to Tommy Tallarico and Video Games Live for making this interview possible!

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