Video Games Live this Sat

There has been a conspiracy today to remind me about the Video Games Live concert; first a press release trumpeting the involvement of Richard Jacques in the event, and then a near-miss when I almost managed to empty my ticket for the event into the bin during a much-needed purge of about seven hundred supermarket receipts and Nectar point statements from my wallet.

Who am I to ignore such signs and portents? If I needed reminding, you probably do too. Here goes...

Video Games Live takes place at the Hammersmith Apollo in London next Saturday evening, and promises to be quite a treat for fans of videogame music - featuring, as it does, orchestral performances of music from a host of games both old and new, along with projected game footage, special effects and a laser light show.

The list of games whose music will be performed is as long as your arm, but highlights (for me personally, at least) include Metal Gear Solid, Zelda, Castlevania, Warcraft, Marty O'Donnell's spine-tingling score from Halo and, of course, Final Fantasy.

There'll also be a "classic arcade medley" of music from, er, arcade classics - everything from Pong to Donkey Kong, according to the Video Games Live website, although to my mind Pong only made peculiar electronic farting noises every time the square thing touched one of the rectangular things, so I'm hoping for a 15 minute skull-splitting remix of that which would make Aphex Twin weep like a child.

Richard Jacques (to return to the original topic) will be on hand to say hello to people who come along, and music which he composed for Sega's Headhunter will be played as part of the concert.

All of which would simply count as "I've got a ticket and you don't" teasing, were it not for the fact that there are still tickets available - you can get them from the SeeTickets website. Seriously, these events are great fun, and even if some of the game music on the list is slightly surprising (no offence, but does anyone actually remember any of the music from the Tom Clancy games?), hearing the medium's classic themes being belted out by a full orchestra is a fantastic experience - as we found out at the Dear Friends concert of Final Fantasy music in San Francisco last year.