My first exposure to Rock Band was on New Year’s Eve, at a friend’s party (not the one where Tricia marched Iain up the staircase. This was after that.) It didn’t really sound fun, it sounded like a recipe for disaster, your have four people doing four different things (Drums, bass, guitar, microphone) and there’s a point system and you can get bounced off if you don’t do it right, and it just seemed HARD.
But it wasn’t. It was the most fun I’ve ever had at a New Year’s Eve party. Nobody’s really focused on how you’re doing, they’re all worried about how they’re doing. The spectators are just watching and laughing (and drinking, mostly.) I played drums my first time out, and then switched to microphone. I rang in the New Year singing “Don’t Fear The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult, one of my favorite songs of all time, despite Will Ferrell and his blasted cowbell ruining it for most folks. If you’ve ever seen the opening credit sequence to Stephen King’s TV version of “The Stand,” it’s an awesome use of a song.
My small group at church loves Rock Band too, and we’d occasionally play it after our talks on Sunday nights. This is where I discovered that I can play bass pretty well (as long as it’s set on the “Easy” level, ha ha ha.) and we ended our last small group session before summer break jamming out to Paramore’s “Crush Crush Crush.” I hadn’t given the song too much thought before, but when we’re all pogoing with our respective instruments (I was bass that time) and we’re all singing “Crush….crush…crush…crush…crushTWOTHREEFOUR! Nothing compares to! A quiet evening at home! Just the one, two I was just counting on!” you really appreciate what monster riffs that song has.
I don’t know what you guys were doing last night, but it can’t compare to what me and my Pink Piggy crew were doing. Which was Rock Band. Me, the director, producers, significant others, fueled by tequila and barbeque, worked our way through at least three levels or so. One of the producers dared mock my statements that I KICK ASS at Rock Band, and I had to smack him down. I tore through versions of “Maps” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “I Think I’m Paranoid” by Garbage (which my small group can attest to the fact that I can sing the hell out of that song), “When You Were Young” by the Killers, “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis, “Creep” by Radiohead, “Say It Aint So” by Weezer, and “Celebrity Skin” by Hole. My favorite line of the night: “You want a part of me. Well, I’m not selling cheap. No I’m not selling cheap.”
This is Lorraine the 1 year old Dachshund. She obviously had quite enough of us taking over her bedroom (also known as the living room) and burrowed into the towel for some piece and quiet. But no, we didn’t shut up, not till long past 2am.
I also did pretty well at playing drums on the Rolling Stones “Gimme Shelter” which is actually a fun song to play drums to. Said producer attempted to sing that song and OK Go’s “Here It Goes” and it sounded, like, well, dogs should’ve been howling up and down the neighborhood. (Lorraine didn’t do anything.) At one point, Humphry the director came out from the kitchen with the most bewildered expression on his face at the noise that was SUPPOSED to be lyrics, and went over to the TV and pointed out the lyrics crawl on the TV to help the producer out. It was the funniest thing I had seen in awhile.
And here’s me, singing The Police’s “Roxanne.” Which I sang AND avoided the camera for the entire song and STILL scored like a 97 percent. Points off for laughing, I’m sure.Point being, it was a fabulous time, and should Pink Piggy hit the festival circuit, we are truly prepared to take on the crews of any other film in competition and STOMP ‘EM in several rounds of Rock Band. Everyone has been warned.
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