Tallarico: "They Thought I Was Insane"

Tommy Tallarico, co-founder of Video Games Live, has explained how difficult it was to make the industry believe in the show's concept.

Speaking to IncGamers, Tallarico revealed that copyright issues slowed the project down considerably.

"Getting the rights and licenses was the hardest part for us initially," he explained.

"We came up with this idea in 2002, but we didn’t put on our first show until 2005. It took us three years to create the show and a lot of that was spent trying to get the rights and licenses from companies and publishers who I’ve worked with over the past 20 years!"

He went on to say how many of his industry contacts didn't initially buy into the concept of perfoming a live multimedia concert of video game music.

"I’ve worked with Miyamoto on Metroid and I’ve worked with all these people in the industry over the years and even they thought I was insane," he added.

"It took a lot of convincing and and a lot of calling up Taito in Japan to say “Hey, we want to get the rights for Elevator Action because we’re gonna play it at the Hollywood Bowl in front of 12,000 people with the LA Phil...hello? Hello?"

Click here to read part one of the interview in full.