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Rock Band
Barstool rockstars
story Nick Cummings | photo Jarod Opperman
Attention aspiring rock gods and goddesses: your chance to shine has arrived. Grab your friends and some brews and get ready to hit the stage with Rock Band, a video game that brings out the virtuoso in even the most tone-deaf and uncoordinated among us.
Founded in the mid-nineties by a couple of MIT students, Harmonix Music Systems has created games that channel the thrill of making music. After crafting the smash hit Guitar Hero series, Harmonix joined MTV Networks and broadened the experience to a four-piece arrangement called Rock Band, the collaborative music game.
Harmonix delivers brand new downloadable songs through its iTunes-like store. The music store has been a surprise hit; more than eight million songs have been downloaded, and musicians have taken notice. Mötley Crüe broke new ground when releasing its new single, “Saints of Los Angeles,” exclusively through Rock Band. And with more than 1.5 million copies of the game sold in less than six months, the success of Rock Band is breaking out of living rooms.
Rock Band has found a special home where few video games dare to tread: bars. Traditionally, bars cater to two separate attention-grabbers for the inebriated: games of skill and opportunities to be unreasonably loud. Rock Band, which combines the two, has struck a beer-soaked chord with patrons across the country since the day it came out. Local venues such as Eugene’s Jackalope Lounge and Portland’s classic arcade-turned-bar Ground Kontrol offer weekly Rock Band nights.