Rock Band: Shatterer of Dreams
In my head, I’m a rock singer. No, not just in my head – I’ve been told too many damn times that I have a “good” voice to think that I don’t have talent in the vocals department. Yeah, after church the compliments come rolling in, and my mom was always busting my chops about joining the choir back in high school. But I’m a teacher now, and the opportunities to show off the vox just don’t present themselves. Those talent shows the school puts on? They’re for the kids, man, not the teachers.
So when Rock Band came out a couple years ago it was a siren call – here was my chance to live out my rock-and-roll dreams by fronting a band made up of guys who like playing with tiny plastic guitars while I show off some REAL musical talent. I mean, if youtube’s any indication, any six year old can master Guitar Hero on expert if they put enough time into it. I’m out of college, married with two daughters and a job; I don’t have the requisite time to master those five buttons (and anybody’ll tell you moving from Medium to Hard is a HUGE jump- I think the game needs some re-working). But Rock Band was different. Rock Band didn’t require manual dexterity. Rock Band offered a mic. Hell yeah, I was gonna be the Star Dog Champion.
Reality kicked in almost immediately. One, I’m not allowed to play XBox when my wife’s home, so time that I could’ve spent rocking out was instead spent watching the Food Network. I have a feeling that kind of thing doesn’t happen to Sammy Hagar. Second, the song lineup did not necessarily cater to my musical stylings. And by that I mean there were songs I didn’t know on the list. That makes singing the songs difficult, because singing’s about confidence, not trying to read the lyrics while matching the tone of your voice to a little arrow – and speaking of which are we sure the makers of Rock Band programmed the pitch right on some of these songs in the first place? Honestly, there’s no way I score a 79% on “Detroit Rock City” – Paul Stanley ain’t that much of a vocalist, and I sound JUST LIKE HIM when I’m jamming to KISS’s greatest hits on the way to work.
Mainly, though, unlike Guitar Hero, this game is meant for more than one player – the game is Rock Band, not Rock Singer. I’m not quite sure, but I have a nagging feeling there’s something slightly pathetic about standing alone in front of the TV belting out the lyrics to the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (but, dammit, those screams make me feel so alive). But there I am, knocking out the songs at “Hard” and even turning it up to 11 (”Expert”) when the song’s a real rocker (metal horns flying as “Run to the Hills” blares out of the speakers).
So one weekend I invite some guys over to jam. We set up the drum kit (whose “Easy” setting is a crock. Drummers require more coordination than I’ll ever be able to exhibit) and connect the guitars and then they start asking who’s going to sing. I say I will. Their response of “You will?” deflates me a bit, but I know I’m getting 94% on most songs so they’re in for a surprise.
We start out with “Don’t Fear the Reaper” and I practically ace it at the “Hard” level, and yet my bandmates don’t remark on my vocal stylings at all. They’re looking for another song. So we go on to STP’s “Vasoline” and still no remarks. Then one of the guitarists suggests we switch around, so I get a guitar and play bass while he sings Radiohead’s “Creep” and aces it. Hell, anyone could ace that one, particularly on “Medium” where he was at. He then goes on to sing “Interstate Love Song”, another STP, and I’m thinking I didn’t buy this game to play guitar. “Medium” on guitar is friggin” boring, but “Hard” will lead me to fail out at some point before the solo on most songs. So I’m stuck watching our new singer bound around my stage- er, my living room singing about leaving on a southern train on a Sunday afternoon, and I’m stuck playing a fucking plastic guitar and adding in background vocals while he gets the spotlight, the interviews, the magazine covers and all the women!
Man, the rock star life takes a toll, I’m telling you. No wonder Dokken broke up.
