Video Games Live, the long running visual concert series created by Tommy Tallarico, will be playing your favorite game tunes at
Video Games Live, the long running visual concert series created by Tommy Tallarico, will be playing your favorite game tunes at the Altria Theater Feb. 20.
The Richmond Symphony will accompany Tallarico in performing 40+ songs from a vast array of video games. And the songs he plays are partially up to his audience.
Event goers can request on the VGL Facebook page what songs they would like to see live.
“I want to play what the audience wants to hear.” Tallarico said. “Of course I’ll still throw a few surprises.”
The creator of VGL says that the initial idea for the show started when he was 10 years old.
“I used to take my dad’s cassette recorder down to the arcade and record my favorite video game songs and played along on with them on my guitar while I had video games playing on the TV,” Tallarico said. “I would round up all the kids in the neighborhood and make them watch.”
“My two loves growing up were always video games and music. My dad and grandad always said if you do what you love as a career it will never seem like a job.”
VGL has been going on for over a decade now and has performed on almost every continent during that time. Though, when Tallarico introduced his idea for the concert series 11 years ago, he says that video game fans were skeptical of the concept.
“It took me $2 million dollars and 3 years of convincing and planning to get the first show together,” Tallarico said. “People expected me to sell less than 500 tickets and we ended up have an audience of over 11,000.”
“I wanted to prove to the world how culturally significant and artistic video games have become. I feel like VGL has proved that.”
As far as games that provide the best music to be played orchestrally live, Tallarico says that fantasy games like World of Warcraft and first person shooter games like Halo have inventive soundtracks that he enjoys playing as well as the retro 2d platformers Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario Bros.
Before Tallarico’s VGL at Altria you can arrive early and take part in a free pre concert festival complete with Guitar Hero tournament, costume contests, prize giveaways and more.
Video Games Live will be at 7 PM at Altria on 6 N Laurel St, Richmond, VA Saturday Feb. 20.
For more information on the show and pre show festivities you can visit here
