If real life were like Rock Band.

So I got a chance to try out the new game Rock Band this weekend at friend Bill's house, and it is truly spectacular. Like Guitar Hero stepped up to the Nth degree. (You can read Bill's summary of the game here, or check out videos like this one to see how it works.)

Anyway, so yeah, the game's a blast, but to make it as fun as it is, the programmers had to really change your notions of how a live performance should work. Below, I've done my best to recreate what it must look like from the fan's perspective.

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Hey man, how was your weekend? Good good. Yeah, no mine was fine. Went and saw a show. What? No, I wouldn't really say it was good, but it was pretty friggin weird. No, nothing like that. Let me see if I can do this justice:

At the beginning, the band just kinda walked out on stage and picked up their gear. Then they started debating who should play what instrument. The guitarist picked up a bass, then changed his mind again and sat at the drums. The drummer picked up the mic, then seemed to get shy and handed it to the other guitarist. I thought maybe they were just joking around, but then it really got crazy.

Right when the band looked like they were finally ready, they just stood there staring straight ahead. So someone yells out, "Play 'Run for the Hills' by Iron Maiden!" Then the drummer freaks out and starts trying to hand the sticks to anyone who will take them. Everyone else in the band tells the bassist to play drums, but the drummer wants to play guitar, so the guitarist switches with the singer. Then the song starts after what felt like forever.

So the drummer begins playing, but he can't figure out the beat, so it's just random banging. And just when I'm thinking, "wow, this sucks," the singer gets going. And it's like she has never heard the words in her life. She's reading the lyrics off some kind of karaoke machine, at least until she gives up and just starts saying "roo roo roo" for the next, like, 6 minutes.

Right when I'm about to go get a beer, things actually got pretty interesting. The drummer, who looks like some kind of nervous, caffeinated monkey, gets forcibly yanked off the stage for playing so incredibly bad. Then it's kinda creepy, because the song keeps going without any percussion.

But that only lasts 30 seconds or so. That's when the guitarist, who's actually pretty good, starts crotch-grinding his guitar and doing this weird ride-that-pony dance across the stage. I guess that won over the stage manager or whoever, because the drummer got to come back out and play the rest of the song. Strangely, this happened two or three more times. The drummer even got kicked off stage a second time, but he got to come back yet again, apparently because the bass player started shaking his butt and using a wah-wah pedal.

Anyway, at the end, they try to do this big finish. But it's not like one of those jam-band finishes where all the different melodies come together into one triumphant finale. No, it's more like they all just start hitting random notes and drums and cowbells and whatever. I swear my ears were bleeding.

At the very end of the song, they all hit their instruments one last time, but the bass player hits his note about a half a second too late. Everything goes quiet, and they all stare at him like he's an ass. He apologizes to the rest of the band and says he should probably just sing the next one or two. Then the audience got to vote on who was the "most energetic" or some crap. I threw my bottle at the stage and went home.