Rock Band Turns 4 Years Old! Post Your RB Memories

[osteofight]

When did you first play RB?/When did you know you were hooked?
I drove from Columbia, MO to Champaign, IL to some friends's party. They were big gamers and they were showing off their RB setup and their giant HDTV. I've never played a plastic guitar game before but I really got into the parts I played (no vocals!). After the party I was staying the night so I popped in GH3 to try that as well. I was hooked on the genre but I didn't know which one to get. On one hand, I had more fun with Rock Band, but on the other I was more of a single player type of person (ie I had no one to play with back home). My friends told me to get Rock Band anyway. When I went back home I dropped $600 on a 360, RB1, and other equipment. From there, I was the one having Rock Band parties, I picked up my brother's guitar, and a music fan was made.

Discover any new bands through RB?
I was a total music noob pre-RB. I grew up listening to the Beatles and didn't have time for 'other music.' I opened up some in the 90's but there were still huge gaps in my listeneing. Here is a partial list of bands I totally love now due to RB: The Who, Metric, Foreigner, Paramore. Also I've gotten a lot more into musicians I knew before like Nirvana, Green Day, Tom Petty, Jimi Hendrix, and David Bowie.

[kiggidykev]

Rock Band has been an important part of our social lives in the years it's been out.

Sarah first got me interested in Guitar Hero when we moved in together years back. I loved the game and the new music that it introduced me to, but I intensely disliked the competitive aspect of the game and longed for something that we would be able to play with friends together. Rock Band was announced, and we preordered the band bundle with high hopes that we'd have a launch party the weekend it was released. Unfortunately, there were stupid delays in Canada and instrument bundles were rumored to be delayed for several more weeks, if not months. Undaunted, we drove around the city to all the electronics stores we see if we could find a game, and we eventually did.

We had frequent Rock Band parties in our townhouse's tiny living room, managing to squeeze the entire drum kit in front of the TV and play at a reasonable sound level so as to not disturb our neighbours through the stupidly thin walls. We longed for a day that we'd be able to play as loudly as we wanted.

A couple years later, Sarah and I had a Rock Band 2 party on the evening before our wedding instead of bachelor/ette parties, which we felt that would be more inclusive to all the out-of-town friends and less tacky. We played until very late and only stopped once the Mad Catz fog machine set off the smoke detector and the alarm company sent the fire department to the door of the house we were currently sitting.

At our wedding the next day, we had Bandmate statues on top of our wedding cake.

Now Sarah and I have been married with a house of our own for just over two years and the Rock Band parties are less frequent. It makes me sad, but in a melancholy way. My good friend Cory said that as our group got to know each other better, we needed Rock Band less as an ice-breaker. But I'm still thankful it was there to get us up and singing with people we didn't really know that well, forging friendships that would last us a lifetime, teaching me about artists and genres that I'd never have gotten into on my own, and basically making my life more fun that it would have been otherwise.

Thanks. ♥

[frisbeesteve]

I remember when I thought that Alive on Medium was insane. Those were the days...

Haha, ironically, Alive was my first fail on medium guitar... that guitar solo was the longest and trickiest I'd come across so far. Prior to that, I was ****ily going through and passing all songs from RB2 and RB. I passed it on second attempt with a ton of focus, but then later was going through all of the RB1 songs and finally came upon Green Grass... let's just say that that was a VERY VERY humbling experience as I failed that on medium about 4 times before passing. That song remains to this day probably my favorite all time RB song, even though it is a cover!

[CHARLEY1984]

I first bought "ROCK BAND" because WE got so tired of everybody fighting over 1 guitar, GH III. I got sooo hooked with the drums. My downstairs neighbor, would call the police on me... I mean getting into the groove would last us, ummm.... ALL NIGHT 3am comes quick!! ROCK BAND 2 was even better. Rock Band 3 (pre ordered) Is the CHERRY on TOP!! Can't wait to see what is coming next. RB 4???
Met my first "bandmates" on XBOX LIVE !!! YEAH CANADA!!! i'm from New Jersey.

Then the most unbelievable, unheard of..... THE COMPETITION !!! Met the GURN KILLERS in Atlantic City, NJ Those guyz ROCK !!! Learnd alot from all my XBOX Live friends Party's every chance we get... every weekend!! DLC over 2,000 + songs and still purchase. Had to take part time job just to keep up with the music..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROCK BAND..... Keep us ROCKIN and keep us ROLLING

XBOX Live Gamer Tag CHARLEY1984 Pro Drums

[DominusVita]

Back about 6 months after I got rock band 2, I was looking for a method of dropping weight - I was at about 255 pounds, which was the equivalent of a walking heart attack. My brother had I and him try a gym club, but I couldn't stand being in that place. I realized eventually that the answer was right in front of me, so to speak. I rebought the improved RB2 Bundle (with the cymbals as well)for the PS3 and used the drumming as a form of exercise. The long story short is I managed to get as low as 139 lbs. Admittedly, I've gained a bit since that happened years ago, but I'm in far better shape than previously. Painkiller and Souls of Black on Expert by far were my calorie burning songs. I may have, possibly, used Guitar Hero: Metallica as well >_>... I did about an hour and a half per day, maybe more on off days. It was exhausting, but the weight dropped off like nothing. It was nuts.

Anyways, that's my cool story, bro.

[WillDrum4Food]

Anyways, that's my cool story, bro.

Cool story, b-oh, wait...!

Iseewhatyoudidthere....

[Yim the Blim]

When did you first play RB?

The first time my bandmates & I got hold of RB1 was back in May 2008 (not quite 4 years but us Europeans had to wait, boo). The 'Band-in-a-Box' was a belated birthday pressie to my hubby who, along with the rest of my bandmates, were GH fans.
It arrived on a Saturday morning, & our GH bassist & would-be drummer turned up as soon as we gave them a bell. We had a steady stream of people coming over to our house that day, & 'sold' the game to a load of our friends, several of which went out & picked up the game the very next day. Those first 10 hours were the most fun I've ever had out of a game, & over 3 years later (& a living room full of plastic instruments), we are still playing RB on a regular basis. ^_^

When did you know you were hooked?

The moment I picked up the mic & realised that I could enjoy playing a video game with my hubby. ^_^ Until RB came along, our video gaming habits were usually solitary affairs, so thank you HMX for making an awesome game that we both still enjoy playing. ^_^

Discover any new bands through RB?

Umm, loads actually, Dave Grohl et al being at the forefront. ^_^;;

As for my favourite RB memories, I have several of those;
* the first day we got RB1
* doing ESL1 as a full band, that was great fun & an entertaining experience
* my hubby & I FC'ing our first song together - it was Maps on RB1
* being asked by the drummer of a local band if I would be willing to sing a couple of songs with his band; I was extremely flattered but I declined - my only stage is my living room
* my 40th birthday RB party I had a couple of months ago - lasted 3 days & I had no voice by the end of it. ^____^

[Chucklestyle]

This post has been brewing in my head all week but I can't sleep so here it is. Forgive the mess.

I've been a Harmonix fanboy ever since I picked up Amplitude back in the day. Got the first GH pretty close to launch and had been following it via the web before its release. Extra guitar ordered as soon as I could, because the only way the game could be more fun was with more people! Soon after that I discovered scorehero.com, and got pretty aggressive logging scores even though I honestly really can't hang with some of the pros. GH2 co-op, and then repurchased for XBOX360 with a pair of Xplorers at launch.

Fast forward to the announcement of Rockband. SOLD. Preordered a bundle as soon as I could, and scooped it at midnight (same night as one of my other faves, Mass Effect). I got the bundle home, and lucky for me my roommate at the time was a pretty deep sleeper. Even though I had to be to work in 5 hours, and I had told myself not to touch it....I set up the drums. And failed on medium.

Other great memories:

Every single breakthrough I had on drums on the RB1 setlist. I'd get stuck on a song for sometimes up to a month until it "clicked". Eventually moved up to hard, stayed on hard too long until finally moving up to expert. I can't tell you how many times I've failed expert drums on Go With the Flow and Don't Fear the Reaper.

Being part of the 3rd place band in the first "Take the Stage With Rockband" contest. (Thanks fcphantom for being the catalyst for that!). I won a PS3 RB bundle without owning a PS3. I gave it to my brother, who has a PS3, and when he asked what I wanted in exchange, I told him no payment was needed since in order to get it I just had to play my favorite game for hours.

Beatles Rockband: took a half day from work on launch day. Got the Spec Edition bundle home, and jumped into career mode halfway to the end with a friend on XBL who had already been playing. A few friends came by, and 12 hours later I had been through the career mode twice. Amazing. Also felt compelled to email HMX about the awesome dreamscape for "Because" and was flattered with a response.

Countless Rockband nights have happened at my house. I have had tons and tons of fun at each one, and my friends still ask when the next ones are. I love the looks I got from people when I stick the vox on The Way That It Shows or The Sweetness (I kill those songs, trust me). The best one though would be New Year's a few years back, when my now singer and guitarist planted the seeds for me to "upgrade" to real drums. One set of e-drums and two acoustic kits later, my real band is cutting into my Rockband time, and my co-op partner from GH2 days is my bassist. I never did take to guitar too well, (and arguably I'm not that great at drums either, ha!) but your game is directly responsible for me learning a real instrument and joining a band with 3 good friends. Mission accomplished, Harmonix. My favorite game translated into one of my favorite things.

Unfortunately some pretty severe health problems have curbed the band and robbed me of 60% of my hearing. Doing my best not to be bitter about the musician and music superfan who can no longer deal with stereo, and playing Rockband when I can to re-learn how to listen to music and eventually get back to playing drums when my health is restored. It hasn't stopped me from buying DLC, and it hasn't stopped me from having people over to play. Managed to have a few people over tonight and play, got through some drums without my head exploding, and did some guitar and backup vox. It felt great to hit a few of the harmonies on those new Soundgarden tunes.

Rockband has been my favorite series of games, ever. Every worn out instrument, every DLC purchase has been worth it and then some. The debt I owe HMX for getting me from game drums to real drums is immeasurable. I signed up for twitter just so the DLC announcements would get beamed to my phone each Friday so I could stop thinking about it and checking the web constantly each Friday morning. According to my XBL profile, I've played RB on 190 seperate occasions, RB2 272 different times, and RB3 is at 117 (so far...)

And this game finally made me understand why everyone loves Rush.

So thank you, everyone at Harmonix. Best game ever.

[BeatlesGrippQueen]

My first time playing it was in june of 2008. I had got Rock Band for graduating public school. I was given it just after the ceremony. I was given the full band set which made me really happy. It got me to switch from Guitar hero to rock band. Then I would go over to my friends house and play it with them. I would like to thank harmonix for fully introducing me to the Beatles because I knew very little of them before hand. They have many great songs and some okay songs. When I learned you could download on rock band. I wanted to get it for a different console(I was on the PS2). I made friends with a music maker because of RB3. Known as Askari Nari(not real name). I just love the dlc because it is so wide of variety and HAPPY BIRTHdAY ROcK BANd!!!

[NOT_Travis]

I know I'm late to the party on this one, but I can't not say something.

When I first heard of the music gaming genre that was soon to take over the world, I dismissed it. "Pssht! Pick up a real guitar!" My cousin rented GH2 and on a lark, I tried "Them Bones". It frustrated me and I still wasn't interested. This is why I was late to the game, too.

However, he asked for Rock Band 2 for Christmas from his wife, and got a single guitar. One weeknight, he invited me over or we were hanging out already--I can't remember--and I tried it. For some reason, this struck a chord with me (pun very much intended) and we started getting together weekly. First my cousin and me, then another buddy. It got fun. One of the first blow-my-mind moments was just after we discovered the DLC and I had purchased "...And Justice For All" was seeing him make it through that song without failing. On Easy.

So I got my own copy of the game used (sorry about that, guys. I made up for it later) and a used plastic axe. The wife had tried it once and done really well on Easy for her first try. So I had it set up, and here we go again: we're trading off on the guitar. That was a Monday night. By Thursday, she had gone and bought her own.

When the franchise truly clicked for me was when a different buddy got the full band kit, and I first sat down behind the drums. I was awful at it at first. But completely addicted.

3 years and a serious case of G.A.S. later, I have an ION kit with 3 Pintech cymbals, a Yamaha KP-65 kick trigger, double-bass pedals, Vic Firth sticks, a HH+Kickbox, and the original ION pedal is my hi-hat switch. I've also bought my cousin the Mustang for Christmas last year, I have a Squier, we have about 5 plastic axes (maybe one of which work), and I've exported RB1, 2, Lego, and Green Day.

Favorite moments playing Rock Band (chronologically):

My cousin substituting "Eat Chester Fried!" in the chorus of "Testify" and generally being goofy throughout the rest of the song. Imagine someone in a fake Julia Child voice singing RATM. We almost failed out because the whole room was cracking up.

On The Beatles: Rock Band, I sang "Something" to my then-girlfriend while she played the drums. I kept looking at her as I sang. As the song finished, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. (This one, obviously, is my favorite. And she said yes. In fact, a large percentage of the music played at our wedding reception was from RB setlists.)

Last February when the duets pack came out, hearing everyone sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" as though we were in Old School.

FINALLY getting a GS/FC on "Let The Good Times Roll" and a #1 on the leaderboards on Expert Pro Drums. I'm not an amazing drummer, but that was gratifying in the extreme.

Those are just the highlights. We still get together most Monday nights to rock out and actually have a group on Facebook where I post the next week's DLC after prowling the forums during the week. I've got something like 460 DLC tracks, and this is one of the very few games I've been playing like a maniac ever since I discovered it with no sign of slowing down.

Congratulations on 4 years of awesomeness, Harmonix. Thank you so much for bringing this game/music experience to market so that my friends and I can have so much fun together. I'm looking forward to the next 4!