Rock Band Fun

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By Joey Berlin

Originally published 01:58 p.m., February 28, 2008
Updated 01:58 p.m., February 28, 2008

Photo by Joey Berlin

Marshall O’Brien, singer of the Rock Band competitors Bees Running Wild, keeps his eyes on the lyrics as he performs “Ballroom Blitz” during this week’s edition of J Mo’s Place’s Rock Band tournament. Six weeks of preliminary rounds will result in six semifinalists and three finalists in the video game competition.

Video games long ago became a way for people to experience the thrill of winning the Super Bowl, stacking falling blocks of different shapes into horizontal lines, or killing an oversized creature that looks vaguely like a dinosaur in order to save a kidnapped princess — all without breaking a sweat.

The recent emergence of the megahit game Guitar Hero and the newer hit Rock Band have given many gamers a chance to live out the same kind of fantasy in musical form. Now, J Mo’s Place in downtown Emporia is giving Rock Band nuts the chance to form their band, compete against other groups and take home the bar’s first Rock Band championship.

Wednesday night marked the second of six preliminary-round weeks of J Mo’s Rock Band tournament. The winner from each night will move on to the semifinals, which J Mo’s owner Joy Morgan said will be held in April. Those six bands will be pared down to three finalists, with the members of the winning band each receiving a trophy.

“I think it’s a fun game, and I think it actually teaches people,” Morgan said. “You learn new songs, older songs, coordination, with trying to tune up the vocal cords a little bit, their guitar skills, and see if you’re coordinated enough to play the drums.”

Photo by Joey Berlin

The band Black, with singer Jake Marquart, drummer Michael Ford and guitarist Alex Barezinsky, practices the ’70s hit “Ballroom Blitz” during the Rock Band video game tournament Wednesday at J Mo’s Place. The group performed the song earlier Wednesday and racked up more than 590,000 points on the game.

Rock Band comes with special guitar and drum controllers, a microphone and hundreds of rock standards to play. Experience on your instrument isn’t really necessary — players follow color patterns on the screen for musical direction, the vocalist follows along with the lyrics, and the CPU tabulates points based on the accuracy of the performance.

In the J Mo’s tournament, bands competing on the same night each play the same song. For Wednesday night’s round, Morgan chose “Ballroom Blitz” by The Sweet.

The band Black took an early lead with its performance Wednesday night, as vocalist Jake Marquart, guitarist Alex Barezinsky and drummer Michael Ford rang up more than 594,000 points.

“You kind of get tired of playing it after awhile,” Ford said, “but you can get online and download new songs and pay for them; they’re like five bucks, you can buy like a package. They keep having new songs, so it keeps it interesting.”

“At first, really I hated it,” Barezinsky said. “I thought it was kind of (stupid), but ... I played Guitar Hero, so it just came kind of natural.

Photo by Joey Berlin

Jake Marquart, who was the vocalist for the band Black during J Mo’s Place’s Rock Band competition, switches to playing the guitar controller while Michael Ford plays the game’s drums.

“It’s a good game. It’s a good game to play drunk or sober.”

Morgan had never heard of Rock Band before her bartenders began talking about their competitions on the game.

“They were just like, ‘We did this, and this person was on this level, and this person was on that level’ ... they said, ‘Joy, we should have a competition at the bar,’” she said.

Each first-round competition will be played on the game’s Medium level. The difficulty will be turned up to Hard for the semifinals and Expert for the finals.

Morgan hopes for the tournament to grow in the coming weeks. She said the semifinals will be held on a Saturday afternoon in either the second or third week of April and anticipated the finals would be held the following Sunday.

“That way, they can bring the crowd with them, their fans, to support ’em and cheer ’em on, have the girls screaming in the audience,” Morgan laughed. “They can throw their sweaty handkerchief out.”