The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses was at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, Florida yesterday - and I had tickets!

My wife and I had tried to go to Video Games Live in Rochester, New York last November with my brother. Unfortunately, we both wound up with the flu and couldn't go. Instead, my brother got to send me a text message after each song letting me know exactly what performances I was missing. This was undoubtedly karma for all the terrible things I've probably done to him over the past 19 years...

Anyway, this time, we weren't bed-ridden. Good thing, too! It. Was. Awesome! I managed to get us seats in the 3rd row back, so we were able to see many of the musicians up close. We were also pretty close to center-stage, so we had a good view of everything but the bottom of the screen. Here's a photo I took before things got started:

Throughout the whole show, I only had a single complaint: I hadn't properly prepared Kestrel for the experience. She grew up as a PC gamer with StarCraft, WarCraft, Neverwinter Nights, and so forth. I, however, grew up as primarily a console gamer with The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, and Donkey Kong Country. So, while I had full context for all the songs and vignettes they were playing and showing, she felt a little lost. The gameplay recordings and cutscenes just didn't adequately explain things to a more general audience.

The experience is still absolutely worthwhile if you aren't familiar with The Legend of Zelda and its games. But, do yourself a favor and read a quick synopsis of each game's story before you go. The videos they play throughout will make a lot more sense.

If you'd like an idea of what the experience is like, it looks like someone has taken video of the full thing from a show they did recently in Germany (it's obviously better in-person, though):