Take the controls at the Nintendo Fusion Tour
Gamers unite and join hands with TRL-loving hotties across the wide-open Palouse!
OK, that’s not the headline the Nintendo Fusion Tour 2004 will make at the Big Easy Concert House on Sunday.
But when the doors open at 6 p.m., one thing of note will occur: Nintendo will unleash upcoming games and platforms amid riff-heavy pop-punk tunes.
It won’t be your average video game soundtrack (sorry, Megaman 3). In fact, none of the four bands involved has any ties to the gaming world. Well, except for playing games.
“Nintendo is probably the first game system that we all owned,” said Adam Barrett Russell, bassist for headliner Story of the Year. “We all played Duck Hunt and all that crap.”
Think of crap as a term of endearment here. He is talking about the original NES, after all.
Story of the Year scored a gold record (so far) with last year’s “Page Avenue” and has a video for the single “Anthem of Our Dying Day” in rotation on MTV.
So how’d the guys hook up with Nintendo’s latest pop-culture experiment? According to Russell, the gaming company sought them out and that was that.
Yeah, like anyone would say no.
UK band lostprophets, which boasts very Californian sounds, was perhaps the easiest sell. Rhythm guitarist Mike Lewis and singer Ian Watkins grew up across the street from each other in South Wales, and they had a plan for buying Nintendo systems.
They coordinated who would get the latest, so they didn’t double up. For instance, if one bought the NES, the other would buy a Super Nintendo. The Nintendo 64 was Lewis’ favorite.
“Goldeneye was one of the best games ever made,” he said, “that and the Legend of Zelda game.”
The intense (but don’t call them “screamo”) Letter Kills – though its members are not the biggest controller hogs – saw the event as a way to rock its huge sound alongside bands in the same vein.
“Even though there’s games and stuff, people come for the concert,” singer Matt Shelton said. “The shows have been packed. So far it’s been really cool.”
My Chemical Romance is going steady with Xbox but has been getting pretty sweet on the tour’s namesake. The bands were given free GameCubes, and they get to try out new stuff. Romance guitarist Ray Toro dug Donkey Konga, a new game where players use bongo drum controllers to play along with popular music.
But on tour, that honor isn’t reserved for the bands. Nintendo is bringing an army of demo booths for folks to try out upcoming titles. Fans also will get a sneak peek at the upcoming DS system, a dual-screen handheld the company claims will change the face of gaming.
All in all, Nintendo Fusion Tour 2004 is the story of hardcore pop rockers showing their love for games, while simultaneously unleashing their sonic arsenals on the next generation of gamers.
“Everybody on the tour’s kind of like-minded and stuff,” lostprophets’ Lewis said. “It’s been pretty cool, and Nintendo’s pretty cool. It’s not like we’re on the Atari Jaguar tour or something.”