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I wouldn't say that buying The Beatles: Rock Band is like buying friends. Because we already have friends. I swear. But it is pretty eerie how all of our friends want to come over at once all of a sudden.
And why shouldn't they? The video game, in addition to featuring the best music ever made, is incredibly fun to play, especially with a group of people.
On Friday, September 11, we had about a dozen people over to play the game. I was a little concerned about getting people to play (especially sing), but Kevin, Stacey, Chris, and Kim, four of the first to arrive, picked up instruments and microphones right away. We went through a lot of the early songs together, and then after the first group left, we had a second band that included Jenny's friend Michael on lead guitar, Keith on drums, and Kelly and Jenny singing back-up. The new group finished out the night with a mix of later songs like Here Comes the Sun and Come Together. All in all, it was a great evening with some great friends.
Then, a week later, my family came into town for a Beatles: Rock Band weekend. I had been building this game up for quite a while, but I had no idea how they would actually receive it. My parents got in on Friday night and my dad and I spent some time listening to a couple of the remastered CDs he had picked up, Rubber Soul and The White Album. He thought Rubber Soul sounded great but wasn't sold on The White Album (he has always said that it was not a great album fidelity-wise, especially compared to Abbey Road). I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he's used to listening to the LPs and not the pretty poor original CDs.
On Saturday morning the seven of us (Brandi, my parents, Alicia, Cristina, Cristina's boyfriend Daniel, and I) went to have a South Austin breakfast at Polvo's, my favorite place for breakfast. Then we got home and got comfortable with the Story Mode of the game. We switched around on instruments a little bit, but people pretty much got comfortable with a particular instrument pretty quickly. My dad liked the bass, Daniel played a lot of guitar, Alicia sat at the drums, and Cristina mostly sang with a little drums. My mom had declared her intentions to play drums, but she quickly found it to be difficult.
We made it through all of the early live venues as well as most of the Abbey Road studios songs before we stopped for dinner. I grilled chipotle pork tenderloin on the grill along with corn on the cob and asparagus, and Brandi made a peach salsa, macaroni and cheese, and a great apple caramel cake. After dinner we tackled a few remaining songs before finishing with the Rooftop Concert. It ended up being about an eight hour Beatles Rock Band marathon that was a whole, whole lot of fun.
After the family left, I took a little break from The Beatles: Rock Band, to volunteer at church for an evening (with Brandi) and to celebrate a wonderful 2nd anniversary dinner with Brandi at Truluck's. Before getting out the Hofner bass this evening to play a few songs, I had endured a three-day respite from The Most Important Video Game Ever. That was my second longest Beatles Rock Band drought ever. The longest? June 13, 1978 through September 8, 2009. Boy, that was a rough one.
