Rock Band

Well the summer is just flying by as usual. Typically, the time between Memorial Day and 4th of July is about a week and a half. The calendar says it is separated by 5 or 6 weeks but that is not possible. I am trying to make excuses for yet another gap in posting on the blog. Any sympathy out there?

OK, so as most of you know, I got a Nintendo Wii for my birthday a few months ago. I have been diligently working on my golf swing, tennis stroke and 7-10 split. Now, I have another thing to work on. My guitar riffs.

I first played Rock Band at our friends house on Super Bowl Sunday. We were supposed to just play during halftime of the "Big Game". However, we had such a blast that it spilled into most of the second half. Since then, and with the addition of the the Wii, I have been counting down the days until Rock Band came out on Wii - June 28th. On June 29th, I had a package waiting for me on our front porch from Amazaon. The full Rock Band set with game, guitar, microphone and drum set - all the essentials to rule the world as a rock legend, or at least a rock legend with a plastic guitar and colored buttons.

So the way you play is you put on a pretty famous song (Roxanne by the Police, Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi for example) and you play along by pressing the colored buttons with the correlating colored tiles on the screen. As those tiles hit a certain point, you "strum" the little flipper on the guitar and out comes the music. If you do it right, it feels like you are playing a song. If not, the sickening sound of silence.

It sounds sort of complex and it can be. But it is also a blast. I took it down to our place in MD over 4th of July and our family had a ton of fun playing. Here are some highlights. Enjoy.

I'm not sure but I think that is how U2 got its start.

A couple of things to note here:

#1. Tyler was the first person I ever saw sing a song AND play guitar while playing Rock Band. And I think this was the first night he had played.

#2. My uncle Doug playing Rock Band while wearing a "Rock" T-shirt we got him for Christmas. A personal highlight of my weekend.

As a follow up, the band in the video - my cousin Tyler on vocal, Chad on guitar and my sister on the drums - has since gone double platinum covering Blitzkrieg Bop. They are opening for Coldplay this summer.