Shannon’s Perspective:

This might come as a shocker, but I am not a gamer, wish I was, but I’m not.  I got tired of getting my ass handed to me by grade schoolers (even if they were my own children) when we played Crash or Spyro. As they got older the games got harder and when they moved on to first person shooter games, I realized that they make me motion sick, so no I didn’t really get to spend a lot of time gaming with my kids, that’s what dad was for.  I know that it wasn’t just the gaming they enjoyed, it was also the music, but it wasn’t until we took them to see a Video Games Live concert at the Columbus Symphony that I finally fully understood how powerful video game music can be.  It was so much fun watching them at this concert, I will never forget how much they enjoyed the experience and I hope they have fond memories of it as well.

Larry’s Pick: Halo Theme OST

Tonight is another life event moment which brings tears of joy to my eyes.

My sons and I were fortunate to "grow up" during the first, second, third and fourth great console wars. Yes they're on gen five now, but we didn't live together anymore to play against each other.

For those who wonder what the hell I'm talking about it all boils down to Sony Playstation versus Microsoft Xbox.

I'm not sure what the true gaming nerds would say (because I am by no means one), but I think of game systems like this:

When you think of Game Boy, you think of Tetris. You NEED to watch the movie about Tetris and Nintendo - the true story is crazy and very 1980's / 1990's ish.

When you think of Playstation One, you think of Doom.

And when you think of Xbox, you think of Halo.

To me, those were the games that launched those systems and grew their popularity. We (Gabriel, Connor and I) would play games and have a ton of fun trash-talking each other. Until very quickly after they started playing video games in general - when they both quickly surpassed my abilities and suddenly all of the trash-talking was one way - towards me sucking!

Anyway, some games are absolute works of art - the design, the flow, the animation and of course the music.

So in 2007, when they were 11 & 12 years old, video games had grown in popularity so much that a production called Video Games Live was touring the U.S.

They had some musicians, but essentially they would partner with local orchestras to play the music while certain game scenes were shown on a large screen.

So on 4/26/2007, 17 years ago tonight, three geeked up males and one tolerant female headed to Mershon Auditorium to hear the Columbus Symphony Orchestra play all the "hits" of the day. And it was fantastic!

I honestly credit video games for giving both of my sons their love of music.

Sure - they always had to listen to mom and dad playing their "oldies", but video game music is just like a movie soundtrack. It conjures up a specific memory and drives specific emotions.

Halo at the time, and even somewhat to this day, is a huge franchise. And besides all the hilarious "Red vs. Blue" videos, the gameplay and overall storyline - the soundtrack, and this song in particular, really made the game.

They did play this song that night - and to see an actual orchestra and choir perform it was incredible. Great memory.

P.S. Speaking of memory, or lack thereof, Mershon Auditorium is home to a historical pipe organ. And so on this particular tour stop, the audience was treated to, I believe, the theme from Castlevania played on that organ. Not sure if any other tour stops got this special treat.

P.P.S. If you use any version of Windows nowadays, the search feature is referred to as Cortana - which is lifted directly from Halo.

P.P.P.S. Video games are larger than movie franchises. Consider this mind blowing fact about ONE VIDEO GAME released in 2022: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II has shattered all previous sales records for the long-running first-person military shooter franchise. The game already set records when it crossed $800 million in sales after just three days. Now, in just 10 days Modern Warfare II has raced past the $1 billion mark.