Silician Sketchbook

It was my first time going to Massey Hall and I got a bit lost as a result. I emerged from the correct exit from Queen Station, but without something as handy as a map, and took the long way around by walking around the block.

Part of the confusion stemmed from having the wrong expectation as to its size. When founded my guesstimate by using Roy Thomson Hall as a reference, which is pretty large and stands alone for the most part. Massey Hall in contrast is much more nondescript and blends in with a cluster of similarly sized brick buildings.

After a bit of thinking, I think I would be partial to going to VGL again were it to come to town. I just wouldn’t pay $80 to do so. And I’d like to hear Kingdom Heart 2’s Passion and maybe some Command and Conquer / Red Alert music, but that’s secondary.

Eighty dollars is a steep price to pay to hear a mix of pre-recorded music and live orchestra. Compound that with the fact that the orchestra rehearsed as a group the day of the performance, and I thought it showed. There were obvious instances where the orchestra was not together either with each other or the pre-recorded bits.

Later, the organizer of the group I “went” with told me something that makes it sound as if the musicians didn’t quite know what they were getting into. I noticed the aftermath, when during one of Martin Leung’s performances one of the cellists got up and left, returning before he finished. It turns out that the piece before, foam that I thought was confetti was sprinkled down on the stage. That cellist found herself constantly pausing to wipe the foam off the cello’s strings, and there’s no telling what effect any liquid exposure could have to a string instrument.

The cellist gave the conductor these dirty looks the whole time and, according to my friend, left to probably chew out the stage manager.

I guess when I hear live orchestra being pitched to me, I immediately set certain standards for things like technical proficiency, co-ordination, and sound balance, and the latter two were sorely missed that night.

The same applies to Martin Leung, as technically accomplished as he is. If you want to get really serious about performance, give the man at least a mic’ed upright piano. A digital keyboard with its flimsy stand, and a typical chair, is not an optimal performance platform. As it was, he was pretty casual on things like hammer octaves, but when things are loud and fast one can pedal things away and the casual fan won’t notice, or just be more impressed with seeing hammer octaves live.

Because I’m a big Hikk-tard, one of the highlights for me was the performance of Hikari known as Simple and Clean for the english version of Kingdom Hearts. The real highlight, though, was the Coronation/Baba Yetu arrangement from Civilization IV. It was far the most inspirational, best integrated with the video game footage since it was all ancient history and epic structure building. Even though the soloist flubbed his part.

After going on YouTube and looking for what a real performance would sound like, I have come to the conclusion that in general it’s a pretty difficult part to pull off. It’s in Swahili, for one, and the sound balance has to be pretty near perfect because it’s not supposed to be too loud. The best performance of this arrangement was from the Hollywood Bowl, and it may have very well been the original game singers present. The next best performance of Baba Yetu isn’t even from VGL (which is kind of sad), but from the Valencia HS choir. The only problem is that the backing orchestra was pretty terrible and on many occasions the interjecting lines come in late.

I think that what with the contest events, video game footage of mostly terrible game play (the Sonic the Hedgehog footage is obviously bad even to those who have never played the games), not so perfect performances, and a bit of rabble rousing from the MC, this was really a kind of fan service for video gamers. VGL caters to the kind that will go to YouTube and watch video game music videos just like how I’d go to YouTube or Stage6 and watch anime music videos.

I’m not putting down those people, but I’m likely to think twice before spending a significant amount of money for something that’s better and free (provided it’s not taken down due to copyright complaint).

MonSTARS vs Dikembe Mutombo. Hilarious.

So many airshots and midair stuffing. I guess the hitboxes are larger, and soldiers are just physically large to begin with, so those shots are a lot easier to make.

And add to that the worst New Year’s eve to boot, and I might as well begin with it. I left for home later than I should have. Make that a lot later, 1.5 hours later. There was blowing snow although not too much accumulation downtown, and there wasn’t even too much of the stuff (from what I could see) at Finch station. But it was coming down hard, and one of the worst routes out of Finch station was made increasingly terrible as a result.

There was such a backlog that I eventually got onto the second bus that came along, and the driver initially refused to pull away unless some people got off and stopped blocking his mirror. Over an hour in, things at the back got a bit tense as words were exchanged between a standing woman who wanted to open the window to get a bit of air, and a man sitting down that didn’t snow being blown onto him. I think the consensus is, if you’re standing for over an hour on a bus while sandwiched in on all sides, you’re going to want some air too. And there were a lot of sandwiched people yesterday.

Over twenty minutes was spent sitting on a hill, not because the bus couldn’t make it up the hill, but because pretty much everyone else couldn’t make it and clogged the road. Eventually an opening appeared and the bus weaved in and out of the lanes dodging stuck vehicles. It wasn’t even a particularly steep hill, but given stop-and-go traffic conditions, it’s a lot easier to get stuck on a slushy and somewhat icy hill.

But speaking of sandwiched people, there was a lot of that today, too. What boggles the mind is if anything, the roads were worse this morning than they were yesterday morning. Sure, the snowplows came, when the storm still had 5 cm left in it. I waited a solid half hour more than usual for a bus, and buses did arrive, except they were so packed that a few people were able to squeeze in at best each time. My number eventually came up on the third.

It was an absolute slog until everyone got kicked off at Bayview. The bus was ordered to turn around and we all piled into the bus behind it. And then it was a slog to Yonge, but the road was actually clear in both directions so there was no hold up to get Finch station afterwards.

I think that all this being sandwiched on a bus for an hour plus two trips in a row got to me, and I was so out of it that I woke up just as the subway doors were closing, at Museum. And so I had to wait at St. George and head back south two stops. At least I got to see how the renovation (or “rejuvenation”) of Museum station was going. While it doesn’t blow me away, its purple paneling is a bit warmer than the unadorned concrete walls of stations along the Sheppard line, and it’s a lot less dated than the bathroom tiles at other Yonge/University/Spadina line stations.

I think it goes without saying that I missed my first class. The university should have closed today, like they did when the city got nailed last week.