|
Rock Band Finals Tournament |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Two words... holy s**t... now, surely you people are now wondering if that is in a good way or a bad way? Well, you're gonna have to read this to find out, aren't you? Well, start reading:
So first I woke up around 9 o' clock, ate breakfast, showered, and left the house to pick up some friends who needed rides. It started with my friend Megan, who brought a camera along, hopefully to film and catch pictures of my band's victory... were we to be victorious. Next was my band's bassist, CJ, who apparently was going to be getting a ride from our drummer Elisha's parents, so we had to go to Elisha's for him to tell him not to pick him up. From there we picked up our vocalist, Noelle... who brought breakfast with her, as well as some uber-brownies, as I'd like to call them, even though I had none. The entire car trip was spent with me listening to the songs Beethoven's C***, Tell Me Baby, and Snow (Hey Oh), because they were all possible tournament songs. I was most worried about Snow, though; that song is a b***h on guitar and only guitar... and I'm the band's guitarist. It would be one of the only songs to screw me over if we got it. But enough about my anxieties.
We reached the library at noon to find the 360 used in the competition already set up and our friendly library employee, Paul, DOWNLOADING SONGS! That's right, we weren't using the competition 360 to download songs, WE WERE USING THE LIBRARY'S OWN! We couldn't see what he was getting, but chances are he was getting songs to screw us over; at one point it was revealed he downloaded Sleepwalker by Megadeth... which is on the Impossible Songs tier for EVERY instrument except for vocals... which is on the Nightmare Songs tier. EVIL!!! Because the library's 360 was being used for the tournament, me and CJ practiced to Guitar Hero III on the PS2. After about half an hour, some guy from another library came with a camera; apparently he was going to be filming the event and putting it on YouTube (when I find the video, I'll show it to you all)! Great, now if we fail, the whole YouTube community gets to see it. I took the time to enjoy his shirt: a Rock Band shirt with a guitar symbol on it... I now really want that shirt. Anyway, the next band to come was, ironically enough, the one we beat at the Preliminary tournament (I played their drummer at Through The Fire and The Flames to warm up... and he kicked my a** by a good 60k... he was really frickin' good, and he's the first I actually saw play the intro!). You see, before the actual tournament begins, there was a Wildcard tournament for the 2nd place bands to all compete in to see who'd get into the actual tournament. Seeing as our library's 2nd place band was the only one to come (and my band was the only first place band to come), they were pretty much guaranteed to be our match-up. At 1, they played through Paranoid by Black Sabbath and won to secure their spot in the tournament. Because no other bands came at the time, an hour of free-play (for those NOT in the tournament already) was given to random people who wanted to play, and as an excuse to wait to see if more bands would come, which none did. At 2, both bands were called back into the meeting room. Since we were the winners of the prelims, we could choose the order of play; we chose second.
We took our seats along the side and the other band took positions at their instruments. The tournament would take a best 2 out of 3 rounds approach, seeing as there were only two competing bands. The band to get 2 wins would be the winner of the tournament. The first song was announced: Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi on Hard difficulty. Wait, that's not a download! Oh well, that just makes things easier, I suppose. I was filled with relief because that song is so bloody easy... but then I remembered: it's bloody easy; the other band has a chance to completely own it and take the first win. So they played, and while thankfully their bassist and guitarist were the worst at keeping a consistent combo going, they had great band Overdrive use, and so they had a score of about 540,000 at the end, a higher score than our prelim score of 490,000. When they finished, we went up; thankfully, CJ was definitely a more competent bassist, Noelle could sing the song better, Elisha kept combo considerably better, and I played near perfectly (only 2 notes missed, which I feel ashamed of because I could FC that song with my eyes closed). With the combined help of some great Overdrive use on our part, our final score was over 620,000, securing us the first win!
The other band went up again, readying for the next song: Ride The Lightning by Metallica on Hard. Oh yeah, NOW Paul chooses an effing download to play! Neither I or my band have ever seen the charts for that song (and Noelle hasn't heard it before), and neither did most of the other band (the drummer was ecstatic to hear it, though). They played... and damn, that song is long, about 6 minutes. I studied the guitar chart carefully so I knew what I was up against. At the end, they scored a frightening 590,000... that was going to be tough to beat, especially on a song we haven't done before. However, their big mistake was their Overdrive use: unlike with Wanted Dead or Alive, they didn't use Overdrive all together a lot; much of it was to save their bassist's and vocalist's asses (neither failed, though; gotta give them credit for being survivors). So then we went up... I wasn't feeling too enthusiastic; I've never played the song before and, although it wasn't too hard a chart on Hard for guitar, I was honestly wondering if everyone else could hold their own. I'm not exactly proud of my run on the song; I made a bunch of stupid mistakes and lost Overdrive phrases because of it, but me and CJ were able to tie our uses along with Elisha's, so our score skyrocketed; Noelle did a damn good job of staying alive throughout the song, even though it is Metallica we're talking about. I breezed through the solo with only a few stupid misses, but I got much more of the notes than the other band's guitarist. Elisha nearly failed at some points, but quick Overdrive use on me and CJ's part kept him alive. We finally reached the end... and already all our friends were cheering; our final score was...
623,000!!!
WE WON! WE ********' WON! I immediately fell on the ground, sweaty and exhausted when I saw the score and how I did: 98%, with the "Awesome Solo" acknowledgment! After I got up, I was hugged repeatedly by band members and friends alike; we exchanged hand shakes with the other band, and then came our prize... $200 dollars to Gamestop! Each of us got $50 giftcards with which we could do whatever the hell we wanted with! After a few pictures (including some with each of us standing under our respective percentages), the 360 was free for play for the rest of time was on; the tournament was supposed to last until 4, but the tournament lasted only about half an hour. It was then we found out Paul's intentions: he bought Sleepwalker to scare us... which worked. I also heard yesterday that we might have been playing Snow today... thankfully, we didn't; likely another attempt to scare us, or me, mostly. Oh well, that's all irrelevant now; WE WON! WE ARE OFFICIALLY THE BEST IN THE COUNTY! Overall, today just rocked! I am more stoked today than I have been in a while... total adrenaline rush! Oh, and next week is going to be sign-ups for a Guitar Hero III tournament... count on me signing up for it. cool
Die The Shisno · Sun Aug 31, 2008 @ 02:47am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|