I Have Joined a ROCK BAND

We got our boys ROCK BAND for Christmas. Friday, after setting the game up for the boys, I was asked to join their ROCK BAND. Our oldest son is the gamer among us. He’d had some experience playing this game and Guitar Hero with his friends, so he would clearly be the band’s leader.

Our younger son hasn’t shown much interest in video games, but he likes to rock and demonstrates the most potential for being a future frontman. His big brother is thrilled by the prospect of getting his little brother to join him in playing video games. I think this is a good thing.

I was brought into the band for my veteran wisdom and likelihood of mastering the drums, which I imagine would be pretty tricky for people (adults, at least) who’ve never messed around on a real drum kit with a real pedal. At least I’d like to think this is the case.

As we began our first warm-up session, my younger son couldn’t keep up with the lyrics of one of the songs. He’s in second grade and he’s not an advanced reader for his age. “You failed!” shouted my older son, over his guitar part. Our little guy threw his mic down on the couch and stormed off. I asked our guitarist why he had to use the term “failed” and tried to explain to him the hardships his brother faced 10 minutes into his ROCK BAND career. “I was just saying what it said on the screen,” he replied. It was cool. We went downstairs and convinced our singer to return to practice. We agreed we should switch instruments to see how it felt to be in each others’ shoes. I’d sing, to show our less-experienced bandmate how hard that job can be for even a veteran with better reading skills.

“Let’s make Daddy sing a song he hates!” my big boy said. They chose “Eye of the Tiger,” which indeed was the song I least wanted to sing. Our band leader tried his hand at drums, and our rookie let the CPU play guitar so that he could simply watch and learn. I was shocked that anyone could write lyrics like “Eye of the Tiger” without doing so in the name of comedy. We continued rotating instruments before taking a break to download some additional songs.

Our leader controlled the additional downloads, but he trusted my advice on whether to buy, say, the Black Sabbath package or just “War Pigs” (he downloaded both) or The Who package versus a couple of separate Who songs. The Who package included the one Who song that makes me embarrassed to have ever been a Who fan, “Eminence Front,” and the wussy, I thought, for ROCK BAND “Behind Blue Eyes.” He took my advice and downloaded “Baba O’Riley” and “Sea and Sand” separately, bypassing the package.

“What’s your problem with The Police?” my big guy asked, as I quickly steered him away from their package download. “You told me they had some good songs.”

“They do,” I said, “but their package includes some wussy songs.”

Just the other day I had our city’s Classic Rock station on and I got suckered into listening to “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” a song for which the band deserved a major rock wedgie. Had I known was song it was going to be, I would have quickly changed the station, but I confused the intro and opening verse for the promise of a late-period Police song I liked, thanks to the chorus, “King of Pain.” By the time I realized my mistake it was too late and I had to listen to the whole song just to bear witness to how much I disliked it and why it helped justify the contempt I have for The Police despite their having produced at least a dozen rock-solid songs. I didn’t get into all this with my son, but you lot know what I’m talking about.

With the new songs loaded, my oldest son and I walked through a couple and then took a break for spending time with family members who came over for dinner. At the end of the night my wife’s cousin wanted to play, and the band was back in business. She helped my little guy with his confidence on lead vocals. I was back behind the drums. Our fearless leader was scoring about 95% on the level beyond beginner, which the rest of us still needed to master.

I really enjoyed playing “Sea and Sand” with the boys. Even as a middle-aged man The Who still mean a lot to me about being a boy and a young man. I’ll admit I was a little choked up as I squandered drum fills but generally kept the beat. When I get into a song, I often lose track of the exact lyrics. Watching them roll across the screen was pretty cool. Unlike the Survivor song my boys tormented me by making me sing earlier in the day, I could understand why Townshend wrote those lyrics.

Then we did “War Pigs,” which our cousin and little guy also sang together. That song seemed tougher than when we first walked through it earlier in the day. Maybe it was because the stakes had been raised. At this point, however, our little guy gained a new level of confidence. Before our next song, the Beastie Boys‘ “Whatcha Want,” he told our cousin that he would do all the singing and that she should just lip-sync. I’m pretty sure this was the song he “failed” on earlier in the day. This time he nailed it, hitting 94% of his notes. Our ROCK BAND was beginning to gel! Next we played “Moonage Daydream” for the first time. Again our cousin was relegated to lip-syncing. Our young singer only scored 30%, but his frustration at the final results was deserved. “Come on,” he yelled at the game, “I sang all the words!” We supported his efforts and agreed that he did a better job than the score indicated him. We told him the game should have taken into account how hard it was to sing those typically nonsensical Bowie lyrics. We pumped him up. We were, like, a real ROCK BAND, man.