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On Saturday March 22nd the semi-official Rock Band band of THX, Insinuating Chaos, performed and finished 2nd in a Rock Band tournament hosted by GameStop at Madison Square Mall. It was terrifically entertaining and some of the most fun I’ve ever had with my clothes on.

Like most of my bandmates, I went to GameStop at noon thinking we would be crowded into a corner of the store playing Rock Band for non-existent judges while employees rang up customers in the background. When I saw the stage and sound board set up in the middle of the mall’s main walk-way I realized I was slightly incorrect. In addition to a professional-looking elevated stage and soundboard (to project Willdabeast’s lovely voice all the way to the food court), there was also ample seating for an audience and cameras to record the event.

Our band met up, registered, and prepared to rock. The rules were as follows:

-Compete in bracketed tournament play, single elimination
-Play a song for the crowd with emphasis on showmanship.
-Crowd response determines the winner (not points, difficulty, stars, or anything else)
-All rules are subject to change at any time

There were some other rules specified when registering for the tournament, but they’re either irrelevant or were later changed/ignored. What you see above is the crux of the biscuit.

Our plan was to start strong, end strong, and throw in a crowd pleaser in the middle. As the first bands took the stage it became apparent that lag was an issue—many people were failing. Our first bracket competition took the stage before us and attempted Green Grass and High Tides on expert difficulty. The lag screwed them and they failed the song at about 85%. This was a double-edged sword: it ensured our victory, but they got royally screwed…and they were good. I later told the guitarist I was sorry that lag had screwed him, because he was an awesome player– definitely better than me.

When we brought the issue to the attention of the tournament staff we were initially told, “It’s not about the lag.” (eg The tournament is about showmanship and entertainment). The unfortunate side effect is that it’s difficult to entertain a crowd while failing your song. We would soon find out firsthand. We took the stage to perform Welcome Home by Coheed and Cambria. The song began…and I couldn’t hit the notes. I keep trying earlier and earlier anticipations of the notes, but by the time I realized I had to hit notes almost when they first appeared in my vision, I had failed. Thankfully, Shyzza saved the day with star power and brought me back. We all corrected for the lag and went forward. The crowd seemed to like me playing guitar behind my head (although it’s really not very difficult). We pulled off a first round win with a majority of crowd applause. It was also the first and last song we played without calibrating for lag (we wanted to calibrate from the start, but were told we couldn’t).

Before the start of the second round we witnessed a strange spectacle involving a band that had three guitarists (only two of them played, one of them faked). They finished their set by smashing a lightly fractured cinder block on top of the fake guitarist’s abdomen, then smashing a lightly fractured pine board across the dummer’s head, and then smashing a $100+ Rock Band guitar that belonged to GameStop…into pieces. Not only was it strange and awkward to watch, but the smashing of the guitar almost fragged someone in the eye. After all of that the band had lost the support of everyone except their own posse, and crowd disdain lost the round for them.

Our next song was Dani California by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We chose it because we’re good at it and we figured it would be a crowd favorite. We were mostly right, but it broke my heart when the announcer said, “An now we’re going to take a break from hard rock to hear Insinuating Chaos perform Dani California.” Besides the finals, that was our closest round, but we came out on top.

As the rounds kept narrowing down the field, politics increasingly influenced the tournament. It became immediately obvious to us that if cheering decided the victor, we should cheer for the weakest opponent. As bands were eliminated we also learned that we could form alliances of support from bands that no longer had a stake in the competition. This endeavor was greatly aided by three attractive young women, a band manager, Prey, and Mintz.

For our third song we played Pleasure (Pleasure) by Bang Camaro. By this time we were comfortable, confident, and marching towards victory. We won another resounding victory, although while performing an Angus Young duck walk in front of the stage I almost cut off the vision of everyone except myself. Willdabeast concluded the song by throwing his Insinuating Chaos T-shirt into the crowd, where it was excitedly grabbed by Mintz, who then turned around to the camera and displayed the logo for the camera to see while he jumped and screamed feverishly. We had planned on Mintz catching the shirt to return it to Willdabeast, but the extra drama was a pleasant surprise.

With that we progressed to the finals. We lost the coin flip and had to play first (closing the set would give somewhat of an advantage). Our opponent: Spigot Blister and the __________ (hell if I can remember the rest). When I saw these guys at the beginning of the tournament I thought there was zero chance we would meet them in the finals. I thought the crowd would dislike (and possibly be slightly disturbed by) their costumes. We took the stage and dealt our knockout punch: Enter Sandman by Metallica. I don’t know of anything we could have done better. We rocked as hard as we can rock. Maybe I should have brought some Vodka and had CynEater blow fire from his mouth during my guitar solo. That’s about the only way we could have been more entertaining.

Spigot Blister performed The Hand That Feeds by Nine Inch Nails. They performed it well, with two players choosing expert difficulty, one choosing medium, and one easy. It’s at this point I distinctly remember hearing a voice that sounded like the Mintzor saying, “You don’t have a hair on your balls if you don’t play on expert!” I could be wrong, though. Insinuating Chaos was one of the only (if not the only) band to perform every song on expert difficulty across the board. Unfortunately, when the cheers were tallied, not enough support remained for IC, as the tournament was almost 6 hours old. Spigot Blister was declared the winner, and indeed, their applause was louder.

We congratulated them, claimed our 2nd place prize (a Rock Band “jam kit”), conducted an interview with the hosts, and made our exit. We celebrated our helluva good time with dinner at Beauregard’s.

Post-Tournament Thoughts:

I have a new respect for rock stars. I was exhausted after the tournament and I only played 4 songs with at least 30 minutes between each. I also did a lot of cheering, but I can’t imagine putting out that kind of effort for months on end, night after night. Now I see why they use drugs.

IC may be appearing on the LVL-1 show, streamed via internet, on Wednesday night. Stay tuned for more details.

The band t-shirts got us a lot of credibility. We have promised to make some for the GameStop staff if they have us on LVL-1.

The staff did a very good job of running a tournament with so many quirks and obstacles. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a tough job and they pulled it off well. Kudos.

The host of the tournament told us that she, “can’t wait until we do the boy band thing.” I’m not sure what that means, but I hope it has nothing to do with gold plated diapers.

Much love and respect to my Insinuating Chaos brethren. We came to rock, and rock we did. Until next time…who wants to start a real band?