Costumed as their favorite super heros and video game personae, Comic-Con attendees flowed over to the Pops site for a larger-than-life evening of a celebration of video games and music, past and present. The evening started with an on-stage costume contest (Snake won) and a couple of video game clips. The daylight made viewing on the large screens a little difficult. Perhaps an 8:00 start time would have been better.

The producers, Jack Wall and Tommy Tallarico, premiered Video Games Live in 2005 at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In 2008. the number of performances grew to forty-seven world wide, and this year there are overseventy shows willbe presented. Video Games Live has an educational component with "behind-the -scenes" tours and opportunities for students to meet industry professionals, composers, and musicians. Video Games Live also makes arrangements available for various instrumental combinations for schools and universities.

The multimedia event included video clipswith composers Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) and Koji Kondo ( Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda) greeting the audience. Jason Hayes, composer of Warcraft, made a live appearance. His score was one of the more complex and interesting works of the evening. The San Diego Master Choral was particularly outstanding in this work.

Piano soloist Martin Leung gave a lively rendition of themes from Final Fantasy in the first half of the evening, and then returned after intermission to perform, blindfolded, music from Mario Brothers. This feat was a real crowd pleaser as Leung's fingers flew flawlessly over the keyboard. Singer Ron Reganand the Master Choral accompanied Civilization with African-sounding music and the visuals were fascinating as we watchedancient history reconstructed on the big screen. My young friend who accompanied me recognized the Colossus of Rhodes and mentioned he might like to be an architect. Nice to see positive inspiration coming from the video game culture.Video from the Legend of Zelda was accompanied by a costumed solo flutist,Flute Link,playing with a taped emsemble.

Besides the costume competition, there was an opportunity for audience members to participate, before the show, in a Guitar Hero competition. The winner played a game on stage, with orchestra accompaniment and Tommy Tallarico on guitar. Another randomly selected audience member was a live game piece in an old favorite from the 70's.

Tommy Tallarico was the emcee and his casual manner appealed to the young people in the audience. He spoke their language. He and conductor Jack Wall took to their guitars for the final numbers of the evening, joined by concertmaster Nick Grant and flutist Sarah Tuck in the music of Chrono Trigger. The orchestra was the video star of the encore.

The multi media event included a light show, which was rather disappointing as it consisted largely of bright lights flashed in the eyes of the audience. The video was well co-ordinated with the live performance of the very versatile San Diego Symphony. Theanimation and the music were of the kind to have generic mass appeal, not too profound or subtle. The audience, with a refreshing number of young faces,had a great evening.