Now you may remember, a while back I wrote this post about how disappoint I was with Nintendo’s event in Times Square promoting the new Super Mario Bros. game.
Today I went to an event at Nintendo World, the Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses, to be precise. The event didn’t start until 6pm, but we got there around 12. I guess I’ll divide this into two parts, the waiting on line, and the main event.
The Waiting On Line
I must say, the organization was pretty damn good. They had barriers, they gave out numbered wrist bands and keepsake tickets to the people on line, the Rockefeller Center security guards were present. It was wonderful!
When we got there, there weren’t that many people ahead of us, but in the end we still didn’t get the free stuff because we weren’t among the first 25. I was number 39. At least that doesn’t hurt as much as being number 26. That aside, we talked with some cool people near us on the line while we waited. My street passes from New York greatly outnumbered my street passes from Jersey 🙂 That was the good part of being on line, the bad follows.
We forgot to bring a blanket, so we sat on the ground for the most part, but that was the least of what went wrong. For some reason Bronies decided to have a meetup at this Nintendo event, and they congregated near us. They were annoying as hell. The best way to describe them is socially awkward nerds with my little pony buttons all over them. Listening to their conversations was almost unbearable. There were also a fair amount of n00bs. One guy started asking Scott if he lived “near here” and if he could help him beat Skyward Sword. Seriously? Get on game FAQs.
The Main Event
They let us in around 6:15 or so. I bought a symphony of the goddess t-shirt, they sold out of ocarinas very fast. I was pretty disappointed the Link cosplayer had the Skyward Sword outfit on, but it turned out to be a girl cosplayer, and since I have no sexual attraction whatsoever towards Skyward Sword Link, I became okay with it. They had some presentation by an ocarina player about the instrument’s history and how to play one, but we didn’t really hang around for that. We watched the concert, which was great. I believe they had a violin, a viola (or a second violin, I couldn’t tell), a flute, a bass and a Lyon and Healy (for those who don’t know, L&H is pretty much the top harp manufacturer). There were no seats, I assume to fit more people in, so we sat on the floor.
The guy who did the arrangements spoke before the concert and trolled us, said he worked with Koji Kondo up until around noon and that he said hi. Made me think Koji might show up for a minute or two. Oh well. The music was great, except for a few assholes who were talking. My only complaint about the music was that they had everything connected to amps. I never like hearing acoustic stuff hooked up to amps, it takes the vibrations away. And the room wasn’t that big, if everyone shut up they may have been able to get away without using amps.Or maybe if they just had amps playing the music for the people downstairs.
After the concert was over they were doing a meet and greet/autograph session. Instead of hanging around I opted to take my picture with that Link cosplayer because the line was shorter.
awwww yeaaaaaah gangnam style!!
My Final Thoughts
It’s pretty obvious to me that they did this just to hype up the Symphony of the Goddess concert that’ll be in Madison Square Garden on November 28th. Originally I wanted to go, but after seeing this I’m not sure that I am. I know that it’ll be all amped out at MSG because that’s the type of venue it is. This type of concert would be much better suited for Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, or even the Metropolitan Opera House. Acoustic music doesn’t feel live if you can’t feel the vibrations, and amps totally take that away. Not sure it’s worth blowing $50+ on. I also regret not asking if they’d be using a Steinway. Defiantly not worth blowing $50+ on if they’ll be using a Yamaha.
Seriously Nintendo, the concert halls I mentioned were designed to amplify, yes they are smaller, but why not just play for 2 or 3 nights? *sigh* I guess they’re just catering to the videogame crowd 😦
Oh well, you can enjoy this hilarious photo Scott managed to get
SOON
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chubbyriceball said,
September 17, 2012 @ 4:01 am
I’m soooo glad you got to attend this event. I remembered seeing the link for the one in Philly, but I’m sure this one was just as good considering it was inside Nintendo World haha. Love your Psy reference btw.