Where have I been since our last update to Seattle? Well, the road streak continues...

After Seattle I flew through Boston to grab some clean clothes and bopped on up to New York to film "30 Minutes To Midnight" for SPIKE TV with everyone's favorite gaming personality, Geoff Keighley. The show (which airs tonight! WATCH IT!) was filled with a lot of fun personalities: 3 top forum bands (Centaurrr, Challenger, DIE!), acoustic Rock Band (Bread Pig), that guy who runs on a treadmill while singing, one man rock band...It was a super fun show to shoot (though we really tested wireless capabilities by running 3 setups in a tiny room filled with networked stuff...sigh, dev kits are not fans of wireless peripherals).

All in all, that shoot was boss and super rock band friendly. Go watch it on SPIKE TV tonight! (or hopefully on repeat/online in the future!)

THE CONCERT

After that, I headed out to Los Angeles for the MTV Video Music Awards along with HMXSean, HMXaleX, HMXHenry, our wonderful MTV Games crew of Peter, Pete and Marc, and the illustrious new community assistant, Kat (does she have a handle yet?)

Day one was pretty nuts. We threw a party for LifeBeat (HMX hates AIDS!) at the House of Blues in LA, featuring performances by Panic! at the Disco and Plain White T's. We had a huge Rock Band setup on the floor, and a crowd of 300-400 people lined up in front to watch the bands rock out.

In the context of that, Sean, Kat, Alex and I closed out the night before Panic's performance with a rousing two song set. The second song was "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" by Jet. Throughout the whole night, I had been eyeing the railing directly in front of the stage. Since we were in a side area, we had a nice solid wall right in front of us that was just SCREAMING to be jumped up on.

So, as Sean wandered through the crowd (go wireless instruments! also, so many cries of "OMG Dave Grohl!) I decided I was going to climb up there to encourage people to clap along to the intro. I did, and it ruled, and people clapped. Fantastic right? Except, apparently I misjudged how high up it was and how flexible the material in my jeans were...and split my pants.

While you continue to laugh at my misfortune, I'll explain that I didn't split them down the back or anything (revealing my AC/DC boxers)...just on the inside of the leg, so it wasn't a huge HOLY CRAP! moment...but still embarassing. Ever undeterred, I leaped off into the crowd, finished the song and had an awesome time. Panic! held it down and played a great set (I wasn't sure how much I'd enjoy them live, but they were really really solid.) Then we went back and crashed.

THE AWARDS SHOW

Day #2 was super VMA day: Sean, Kat and I headed to the Red Carpet, while Alex/Henry headed to a backstage talent playspace. After some time in the 95 degree heat, we were all a little confused/disoriented...so when the curtains at the back of the stage ACTUALLY CAUGHT ON FIRE, it took us a second to figure it out. Just another example of us almost killing ourselves due to rock band.

We played with a bunch of people on the carpet (Locksley, who has new DLC out from two weeks back, Perez Hilton, some people I didn't recognize...) but most importantly, we got to hang out with our favorite vocoding genius, T-Pain. He arrived in a sort of thriller-esque/marching band jacket and top hat made of red pleather and zippers. He proceeded to kick his friend's butt at guitar and then scream "THAT'S RIGHT! I'M T-PAIN! WHO'S THE BOSS!?! LET'S PLAY AGAIN!". Boss.

I headed over with Marc from MTV to jam on the on stage setup. While we were back there in the holding area, we got to meet Olympian Michael Phelps (he likes rhythm games!), Ciara, Danity Kane, Lindsay Lohan and a bunch of other people who we'll never have on Rock Band, but all of whom were attractive and very nice. Then we played with Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) and Tokio Hotel in an on-air promo for RB2 during the VMAs. It was SUPER high pressure (had to make sure we were at the right part of the song, that people didn't fail out, that controllers stayed connected...and we had about 25 seconds of exposure...AHHHHH live TV).

Say what you will about Miley's music (I personally think it's actually pretty good if you listen to it, for all of the packaged stuff that comes along with it, they aren't bad songs and they aren't badly performed). She is, hands down, one of the nicest and easiest to work with people I've encountered in all this Rock Band insanity. She always seems legitimately interested in the game and has a great time while playing it, and is sweet and thanks people etc. How nice not to have a huge ego when your music basically PRINTS money. Essentially, she's a rad chick and I'm glad she hung out with us. Tokio Hotel are also nice, but they're clearly happier speaking German, so I tried to leave them alone. I can't imagine maintaining that hair in 95 degree heat.

After that segment wrapped, I hung around to watch a performance or two backstage, managed to pull Pete Wentz out of the way of a moving set piece, and then packed up. We all went to the afterparty to have a celebratory drink and, of course, play EVEN MORE ROCK BAND. The Ting Tings played and they were EFFING fantastic. I hope we get them into the game!

After we wrapped, we took over the front lobby of the Sheraton Universal to distribute and box gear...a few drinks and a lot of confusion later, we were finally boxed up and ready to head out...I slept for a few minutes and then headed out tooooooo.....

LAS VEGAS
So we headed to Vegas for the GameStop Manager's Conference, where The Hellion, HMXSean and Alex Rigopulous (BIG CHEESE) played on stage in front of a few thousand people. Alex went onto make a bunch of crazy announcements about the Wii feature set, what we're looking to do this fall and how great GS is. Then we invited a group of managers up to beat the developers.

MAN DID THEY DESTROY US! IT WAS LIKE 500,000 to 300,000. WHAT AN EMBARRASSMENT. It's like the Battle of the Bands meter was just laughing the entire time...ugh!

But good for them! ION drum kits for everyone! Blast you GS Managers and your sick skills!

From there, I flew back to LA, where I'm currently on set hanging out with some really good gamers and some really fun rockers. I'll have some updates about that when we get closer to the show airing, but it's certainly going to be a fun set of things to watch.

Anyway, hope the epic update was entertaining. Can't wait to play with you guys on RB2 when I get back to the office on Thursday!

ROCK,
HMXJD