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I don't know how we got here. A sense of expectation as thick as fog hangs in the air of this hot, dark room. Not for the first time, I wonder how this is happening. How it is I am here, shoulder to shoulder, with my people, waiting, watching a cyclical stream of digital faces - faces I feel I know better than my own - flickering across the screen.Concerts built around video game music are nothing new. The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy tours have been selling out auditoriums both sides of the Atlantic, and the Video Games Live show - an orchestral retelling of some of gaming's most celebrated scores - is now a decade old. But tonight is different. Whereas those shows are celebrating decades of chiefly classical scores, accompanied by a full orchestra, what we're here for - what I'm here for - is just one person. It's someone you may not even have heard of.
The lights dim as four shadows step onto the stage and the crowd explodes. A drum-kit counts down, and the opening chords of Theme of Laura - a meaty, melancholic piece of music stuffed with sorrow and soul - swells across the room, pushing into every corner. In the middle of that noise is the man behind it all: the 47-year-old composer Akira Yamaoka.
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