A close friend of mine does marketing promotions, and he was running a Guitar Hero III contest at the Adult Swim Metalocalypse show. He invited me to go, and I figured there would be a bunch of hot, young metal chicks there, so I went. The cartoon is pretty cool, I recommend you watch it if you get the chance. The cartoon and music is by Brendon Small, who also made the Home Movies cartoon. I was pretty surprised to find out that the band was on tour, and I was interested in how they were going to turn this:
into this:
We got there, met the promo crew, and I started to play Guitar Hero while everyone was getting ready. They started to let people in, and kids started playing the game. They also had some merch, and a bunch of advertisements for Verizon Wireless. Verizon had a contest too where you were supposed to txt this number and win a chance to hang out backstage after the show. I was walking around checking things out, and it dawned on me: This was a room full of kids staring at their cell phones, or staring at the hot new video game. There were also three projection screen s there flashing Guitar Hero and Verizon ads.
Don't get me wrong, Guitar Hero is totally fucking rad, but it was like they threw all these kids in a bucket and advertised to them. I'm getting pretty disgusted by the whole thing...There was no substance, no counterculture, just advertisements for global corporations.
Then the first band came on.
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Man, these guys suck. Although I have heard of them for years, I've never hear their music before. I assumed they were some type of black metal...nothing could have been farther from the truth. This is music for teenage pusses who want to listen to hard music, but are afraid to. At this point I'm soured by the whole event.
After what seemed like forever, Trail of Snail Mucous got off the stage, and it was straight to commercial. they selected the Guitar hero winner, and after some time they brought him on stage to open for Dethklok on the video game. This kid was amazing. He played some complicated-ass song on expert level and got 4 stars. It was brilliant, I was completely floored. Turns out he's the Guitar Hero champion for the state of Wyoming, or something.
The house lights went down and Dethklok came on. I was instantly disappointed. They played the opening credit song first...surprise...and didn't even turn on any stage lights. Dethklok is old (yea, only two years older then me...shut up), balding and, in some cases, fat. I would have left the stage lights off too. They had the cartoon on on the projection screens. the show opened with a plot to destroy Dethklok fans. The band played and so did the cartoons. It became laughable, and subsequently bearable by the third or fourth song. The cartoons went along with the music pretty well and the violence became pretty awesome. By the end of the show I was totally sold. Dethklok was throughly entertaining, and I totally loved it. The show just kept getting better and better. It played out like a big, live episode of Metalocalypse, only with more violence, cussing and sex. It was totally awesome.
Seriously
Of course I'm saying that because I didn't have to pay for anything, and I got a free t-shirt. Otherwise I would have felt cheated...like those douchebags who pay $100 wear Nascar jackets:
Of course, since I was there with the video game promotion crew, I was some grease on the cog of the corporate machine.
*shrug*
Here's a video for the song they have on Guitar Hero III.
into this:
We got there, met the promo crew, and I started to play Guitar Hero while everyone was getting ready. They started to let people in, and kids started playing the game. They also had some merch, and a bunch of advertisements for Verizon Wireless. Verizon had a contest too where you were supposed to txt this number and win a chance to hang out backstage after the show. I was walking around checking things out, and it dawned on me: This was a room full of kids staring at their cell phones, or staring at the hot new video game. There were also three projection screen s there flashing Guitar Hero and Verizon ads.
Don't get me wrong, Guitar Hero is totally fucking rad, but it was like they threw all these kids in a bucket and advertised to them. I'm getting pretty disgusted by the whole thing...There was no substance, no counterculture, just advertisements for global corporations.
Then the first band came on.
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Man, these guys suck. Although I have heard of them for years, I've never hear their music before. I assumed they were some type of black metal...nothing could have been farther from the truth. This is music for teenage pusses who want to listen to hard music, but are afraid to. At this point I'm soured by the whole event.
After what seemed like forever, Trail of Snail Mucous got off the stage, and it was straight to commercial. they selected the Guitar hero winner, and after some time they brought him on stage to open for Dethklok on the video game. This kid was amazing. He played some complicated-ass song on expert level and got 4 stars. It was brilliant, I was completely floored. Turns out he's the Guitar Hero champion for the state of Wyoming, or something.
The house lights went down and Dethklok came on. I was instantly disappointed. They played the opening credit song first...surprise...and didn't even turn on any stage lights. Dethklok is old (yea, only two years older then me...shut up), balding and, in some cases, fat. I would have left the stage lights off too. They had the cartoon on on the projection screens. the show opened with a plot to destroy Dethklok fans. The band played and so did the cartoons. It became laughable, and subsequently bearable by the third or fourth song. The cartoons went along with the music pretty well and the violence became pretty awesome. By the end of the show I was totally sold. Dethklok was throughly entertaining, and I totally loved it. The show just kept getting better and better. It played out like a big, live episode of Metalocalypse, only with more violence, cussing and sex. It was totally awesome.
Seriously
Of course I'm saying that because I didn't have to pay for anything, and I got a free t-shirt. Otherwise I would have felt cheated...like those douchebags who pay $100 wear Nascar jackets:
Of course, since I was there with the video game promotion crew, I was some grease on the cog of the corporate machine.
*shrug*
Here's a video for the song they have on Guitar Hero III.
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We'll have to come up with something better.