Last Saturday night, I was treated to a concert like no other. Celebrating the last 25, or in this case 26, years of a franchise which has touched just about every gamer, and help mold them into what they are today, The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddess was an experience not to be missed.

Doors opened at 7PM; I was hoping to make a fruitful trip to the merch booth, but was was disappointed to find the only goodies to be a poster and T-shirts. How a CD was overlooked is beyond me. As the merch proved unworthy, I headed straight to my seat, which was about 3 feet from the main stage in the front row. Not all the musicians were visible, but I could clearly see the main video screen and had a great view of the conductor.

The concert starts with a mixture of different themes that make the series, while showing clips and footage from the games. After that, Jeron Moore, producer of the concert, walks on stage and talks about how this concert brings together the rich history of this franchise through its music. After his speech he gives us the next piece on the dungeons we love/despise.

The first movement was based on Ocarina of Time, acting as a sort of “Let’s play”. Most of the game’s story is shown, accompanied by the music for the various sets, starting with Kakariko village spanning across various titles, moving onto the history of the goddesses, and ending on the battle with Ganon. Second movement, our Conductor had to change batons to one that suits the next game a bit better: a “Wind Waker” baton. The next game was, you guessed it, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Same as before, we see a run through the game’s story, from Link joining the pirates to (spoiler) the defeat of Ganondorf.

The Wind Waker set segued into intermission. I used it as an opportunity to check my 3DS, which was going off the charts in street passes. I probably got over 100 tags that day alone. Leave it to a Zelda concert to make great use of Street Pass. Third movement gave us Twilight Princess, but strayed from the formula of going through the whole story. Most of what we got was the intro to Midna, the Light Spirits, the fight with Ganondorf and the ending with Midna in her true form.

The final movement was A Link to the Past, which was structured in a similar manner: starts at the beginning, shows us the important parts, like the sacrifice of Zelda, the Master Sword and the fight with Ganon. As we thought this was the finale, we gave a standing ovation to our conductor and to the musicians, but Jeron comes out and tells us he has an encore to give. The first being Ballad of the Wind Fish (Link’s Awakening), unfortunately they never showed any clips from the game so I didn’t take any pictures.

Then he gives us a second encore with an orchestrated version of Gerudo village. Last, but certainly not least, he gives us one final encore, and mentioned it at the end of OOT, of Majora’s mask (my favorite Zelda). It was done in the same manner as the other four movements, beginning with Link in the forest, Skull Kid coming in and stealing Epona and the Ocarina, Clock Town and the final battle with the mask.

So ends the concert, leaving me to wallow in happiness. As gaming is such a strong part of my life, it was a powerful affair that choked me up more that I should admit. I’d strongly recommend fans of Zelda or any gamer (can they be separate categories?) to go see this.

http://zelda-symphony.com/schedule