Videogames at Wolftrap

During the summer, the National Symphony Orchestra puts on some fun concerts at Wolftrap, an outdoor venue maintained by the park service. They play various movies, and the symphony and choir provide a live soundtrack. I love it. It sounds so amazing. We've been to their Looney Tunes show, and Rodgers and Hammerstein. Last night we went to VideoGames Live, and in a few weeks we have tickets to Wizard of Oz. We like to take picnics and sit on the lawn.

Except for Wizard of Oz. We bought seats to make sure we'd have a good few of the movie. I can't wait!

But last night we were on the lawn, so I stopped in at Wegmans. Wegmans is a grocery store that's a lot like Whole Foods, except its about the size of Kansas, and they only ask for an arm, instead of an arm and a leg at checkout. But they have all kinds of fun prepared goodies, so its a really good place to stock up for a picnic.

We were a little late, so most of the lawn was already filled. We found some seats right around the big screen, but we could see the little screen on the inside, where the seats are.

On the screen they played montages, cut scenes and game play from video games while the NSO and choir played the soundtrack.

It was awesome.

They started out with a classic game montage that had everything from Pong to Dragon's Lair. Donkey Kong never sounded so good.

After that they had montages from modern games, some of which had really impressive soundtracks. God of War had an operatic solo, and I'm actually thinking of looking for the soundtrack to Final Fantasy 7. It was really fun to watch, even for the games I had never heard of.

They also had this guy:



He was amazing. He played for us blindfolded, but even when he wasn't blindfolded he was still wicked fast and amazing to watch.

There was also a video of a live action Ms. Pac Man being chased by the three ghosts through the streets of New York that was hilarious.

Lets see, they had some 20 yr old kid play space invaders while the symphony played the soundtrack in real time to his game, but he was HORRIBLE and didn't last very long. As a consolation prize they give him a home version of space invaders so he could practice.

They also had a guitar hero competition. The guy who won then played Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion on expert while they symphony played behind him, and the thousands of people in the crowd cheered him on. He was awesome! Even on expert he had a 609 note streak, scored over 300,000 points, and won a free laptop.

Videogames live is touring, so if it comes to town near you, I recommend seeing it.