Should video game concerts be more common?

Last week, Kotaku posted an article featuring official footage from the Bravely Default: Flying Fairy concert. For those who do not know, the Bravely Default concert was a live performance that took place in Yokohama, Japan a bit over a year ago and primarily featured the soundtrack from the Bravely Default: Flying Fairy video game, which was released earlier that year in the region. The whole thing was performed by Revo’s new musical project “Linked Horizon” (previously “Sound Horizon” for those interested) and the Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Akira Senju. If Linked Horizon raises a few eyebrows from some of you, perhaps it is because they also created the opening theme for the popular anime Attack on Titan, which is also pretty fantastic.

Anyways, back to Bravely Default. Firstly, if you have not seen any of the official footage from the concert, I urge you to check it out right now. If anything, watch the opening theme along with the other tracks embedded below.

The first thing you will notice about this concert is that the production values here are ridiculously high. I have never seen so much effort put into a concert, much less a show dedicated to a video game soundtrack. And by effort, I do not mean just flashy lights and effects; the whole thing felt like an engrossing performance, to the point where you actually felt like you were in the world of Bravely Default just by watching these people perform its soundtrack. And that is the feeling I got just from watching a YouTube video, coming from a guy who is not even all that interested in the game itself (I have played the demo though!). To be able to accomplish that is pretty remarkable, if you ask me.

Now, let me just say that I am not a concert person at all. The only band I would even consider going to watch live is Linkin Park, and even with that, I am not really dying of excitement for. But after watching footage of the Bravely Default concert, I feel like if video game concerts were a lot more widespread, I would probably go attend a few of them. To me, video game music is just as important as the game itself, and as a musician, it makes me very happy to see a video game soundtrack – and a great one at that – be celebrated in such an elaborate way.

Of course, Bravely Default is not the first video game to get a concert treatment. A few years ago, Nintendo debuted “The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses,” a concert series dedicated to the soundtrack of the Legend of Zelda games in celebration of Zelda’s 25th anniversary. Other concerts have taken place in celebration of video games as a whole, such as “Video Games Live” and “Symphonische Spielemusikkonzerte” (Symphonic Game Music Concert).

But I think we could do a lot more with video game music. Imagine a world where with every video game release, there was an accompanying concert that celebrated the soundtrack of said release. Certainly, it would help with the release-day hype if a concert were held at around the same time. Perhaps maybe publishers could throw in a concert ticket as a preorder bonus or a collector’s edition item, just to give their super-fans a bit extra for their ongoing support. Besides, I’m sure the people who actually recorded the songs would enjoy seeing fans come out and enjoying their work live, especially if the soundtrack took weeks or month to make – a final, triumphant celebration, if you will.

With that in mind, I would totally go to a Xenoblade Chronicles concert if it existed. It really should not be a surprise to any of you at this point that Xenoblade’s soundtrack is my favorite video game score of all time. And can you imagine people role-playing a battle on stage? Every time would be Reyn time! But I digress…

Are you interested in seeing more video game concerts? Which video game soundtrack would you be willing to go see live? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!