VGL was in Edmonton last night and they sure put on a flashier show than PLAY! does.  Tommy Tallarico was there and yes he did mention "bleeps and bloops".  But he enjoyed playing on his guitar doing a rendition of "One Winged Angel".  The usual bits were there, Metal Gear Solid, WoW, Zelda, Mario, Kingdom Hearts and Castlevania, and some Chrono Trigger/Cross at the end.  Martin Lam (?) the guy on youtube who plays mario music on the piano blindfolded was there, and he's quite good, doing a Final Fantasy medley of pieces on piano, doing his blindfolded Mario music and helping out during the Castlevania rendition.

One thing really irked me though - it was pretty obvious that Square-Enix has some kind of embargo on showing game videos of their properties - the Kingdom Hearts piece was set to Disney cartoon footage and One Winged Angel showed FFVII cosplayers during the performance.  Now Dear Friends has to make a stop here so we can see some footage played along with the music.

Apparently a Guitar Hero VGL world record was broken at the concert - there was a competition outside before the show started and the winner played GH:Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion on stage with the orchestra and Tommy.  First Tommy challenged him to get 220,000 points on Hard in order to win - but the kid one upped Tommy on stage and said he'd do it on expert.... which he did and got 300,500 points... not bad.

All in all, a good night of fun.

Huh? Are you suggesting that Dear Friends is the reason VGL can't use Square Enix videos? If so, that's totally wrong. First of all, Dear Friends no longer exists and its successor is Distant Worlds. Secondly, the people involved in this shows (including conductor Arnie Roth) are responsible for PLAY!, and these concerts aren't allowed to show Square Enix videos either. So this phenomenon is simply the result of Square Enix not wanting their videos played in a multi-company concert, not some embargo that Roth and co. have organised.

I don't think a flashier show necessarily means a better show, but I think it certainly appeals to mainstream fans more. I personally preferred PLAY!, but it's gone totally down the pan recently due to some awful producing. Cancelling concert dates, removing really popular items, doing few rehearsals, making the most unprofessional CD ever. I'm not sure whether VGL's musical values are any better, but it seems Tommy has a better idea of what fans want. If you want Square Enix music, though, stick to Distant Worlds and Symphonic Fantasies.

Ok, Distant Worlds needs to come by so we can see some Square footage finally then.

Whoops, misread your post. Guess I've been so used to reading misinformation about concerts that I assumed you were too. Sorry about that. Distant Worlds is making lots of stops these days, so it should come fairly near to you soon!