Symphony of the Goddesses Second Quest in Vancouver

Yesterday night, the Vancouver Symphony performed the Symphony of the Goddesses Second Quest.  I missed the first one, but fortunately this time around I wasn’t going to miss it.  So I ordered tickets pretty early on and was pretty excited for the event.  It was pricey, even after using Club Nintendo’s discount code (at the moment it is BOKOBLIN) it was $67 per seat.

The Symphony of the Goddesses is more commonly known as the Zelda Symphony, basically orchestras around the world playing our favorite tunes from the Legend of Zelda video game series.  This is the second run, also titled “Second Quest” and features a few new songs, but a few encores as well.

It was quite an extraordinary experience.  There were tons of people dressed with green caps or at least a Nintendo t-shirt.  The Orpheum Theatre was filled and there were people outside looking to buy tickets from people in line.  The shop was actually quite disappointing, offering only T-shirts and Posters, neither of which seemed to be worth the asking price.  But of course the main event was the actual symphony.

The backdrop to the orchestra was a big screen that showed gameplay and cutscene footage from the various Legend of Zelda games.  I thoroughly enjoyed the performance.  They covered the obvious which included the main theme, Hyrule Field, Zelda’s Lullaby, the intro from Twilight Princess, etc.  Of course these medleys worked in a ton of other jingles here and there.  Admittedly I’m not old enough to recognize a few of the tracks from A Link to the Past, but who couldn’t help but cheer when they did Ballad of the Goddesses from Skyward Sword and more surprisingly a medley from Majora’s Mask.  All of it was done very well and I appreciate the fact that they included my favorite song of all; Gerudo Valley.

The music was the highlight of the show, and being Zelda themed music, they nailed it.  But that was complemented by gameplay footage.  It certainly brought back some great memories seeing Link grabbing onto a chicken and flying down a gorge or the Master Sword from half a dozen installments of the game.  They captured some hilarious clips (stealing from a shop) and also some of the most iconic (Princess Zelda riding out of the marketplace gates with Ganondorf chasing behind).  But to be honest, I felt that they didn’t put enough care into the selection and that was a lost opportunity.  Since I’ve tried the process personally when I put together the Celda video, I felt that there are some options where I would have chosen something a little different.  Be warned though, each movement was meant to summarize a particular game in the series, so there were plenty of minor spoilers here and there.

Overall, I loved the show.  It was Zelda, performed live, there’s nothing not to like.  Check out the schedule on their site and snap up those tickets if they are performing at your city.  It’s a 2 hour experience that will bring back so many fond memories of the greatest video game series ever.  Though if you’re anything like me, you’ll find yourself itching to pick up a copy of Windwaker and relive the magic.

On a side note, one of the things I really enjoy about these Nintendo events is how everyone, without fail, brings their Nintendo 3DS consoles.  When we entered the building, it was already filled with people, and I’d say a third of them had 3DS consoles on hand, most playing the new Pokemon X and Y.  It’s really quite nice to get the ton of SpotPasses and an endless list of passerby’s in Pokemon.  It was entertaining since you have to option to “shout out” in Pokemon, and so you get some people sharing their seat numbers or making fun of the guy practicing the violin or something.  It just reminds me what a great feature SpotPass is and more unfortunately, how few times I get a hit around Vancouver.