Bit Gen Gamer Fest 5 In Review

On Saturday August 14th was the fifth annual Bit Gen Gamer Fest in Baltimore Maryland. You may recall the post we did about it two weeks ago. At the end of that post I asked Jena if we could go to this awesome experience. She thought it was clever and cute that I would ask in such a way and relented to my request to attend.

Apparently cute and clever is a good way to counter extraordinary geeky.

The festival was held at Sonar in Baltimore. It’s kind of a seedy club just a few blocks away from the block. For those who don’t or haven’t lived in Baltimore “the block” is where all of the porn stores and strip clubs are. A kind of small red light district. The club itself isn’t all that big. Probably could fit around 500 people in there if everyone was crammed in like sardines. It’s really just an oversized bar with a stage.

The organizers who put the festival on went all out. I’m not sure if sonar always has free to play arcade games but at Bit Gen they did. They even had an old Marble Madness cabinet that would’ve made contributor Jesse proud. They even did cut out drawings of all of your favorite 8-Bit heros, an example of which is at the top of this post. They had a short video montage around 3 minutes long that was on a loop that contained a bunch of old commercials and video shots of gamings early days. When a band would play this would changed to a graphic of the bands name in purple with the background being gameplay footage from various games. To the left of the stage there was a whole area dedicated to console games that you could play – similar to PAX’s try it area. The area was sponsored by MAG Fest. Overall the feel of the event was spot on and the organizers should be proud.

The first band up was a local Baltimore band called Armadillo Tank. They were the opening act for the show and served that role well. They got you excited for what was to come. I got the feeling that they were a newly formed band still trying to find their sound. Interestingly they had two female members which were two more members than any other band we saw that night.

The band Rare Candy came out next and while they weren’t my favorite of the night they were the most surprising. So much so I bought there CD. It’s hard not to like a band where they start out their set rocking out hard with a Keytar. The band was a three member group who really seemed in sync with what they were doing. At the end of their short 20 minute set I didn’t want them to get off the stage. Their sound is more typical of what you would expect from this kind of thing. If you heard this weeks podcast you heard a sample of their sound as they were this weeks opening.

X-Hunters were next on the schedule. Jena did not like this group. They are essentially a heavy metal group who specialize in Mega Man covers. It’s funny because I didn’t like them at all live. They were loud and kind of noisy. But I listened to some of their tracks on their MySpace page and I dug them a lot. But I give them credit they did something I never thought possible – mosh pitting to video game music.

The Ultraballs seemed like they were trying to be the Andy Kaufman act of the night. They didn’t stand on the stage and sing. They attempted to be apart of the crowd by mixing with the people up front. But because the microphones weren’t wireless they just stood in the front of the crowd so those in the back couldn’t see them. I’m not going to pull any punches here – they were awful. They scream sang over pre-recorded tracks and I believe their target audience is the 420 crowd. The only interesting part of their awful set was when they pulled out the Pokémon cartoon theme and the crowd sang it. You don’t know nerd until you’ve heard 100+ nerds scream sing the Pokémon theme.

After the crap that was The Ultraballs we got graced with the awesome Year 200X. They are similar in style to The X-Hunters in that they have a metal sound but they have a more lyrical style with their riffs. I found myself head banging (much to Jena’s chagrin) and rocking out hard to them. They felt like a cohesive band who’ve played plenty of shows together and know exactly who they are. I totally loved what they did and and everyone should expect to hear them as an opener to a future netcast.

The One Ups came out next and just blew the lid off the joint. Brentalfloss (who MCed the event) described them as the only video game music that he would have sex too. After much careful thought, that is indeed the best way to describe them. They had a rock jazzy flavor that was different from the rest of the bands that night that tended to drift towards the heavy side of music. They did an amazing cover of Super Mario Worlds Castle Theme that just blew my skirt up. Also it should be noted that they were the only group to take advantage of the duel screens flanking the stage. They had a DVD that would show a short montage from the game they were covering while displaying the name of the song. After about 30 seconds it would go to a static screen displaying their logo and web information. Classy and useful.

This Place Is Haunted came out after The One Ups which was a hard act to follow. TPIH is a bit more like the rest of the bands where they had a heavier sound but had a singer. We weren’t entirely feeling them as they played a lot of the same songs that other bands played. But then they busted out a melody of Disney songs and blew the place off the map. First, Disney toons are pretty awesome. Second, chicks dig Disney toons so all of the ladies who were dragged there loved it. Third, they fucking kicked ass at doing it. I was unaware that Disney songs and Video Game music had a cross section but at 8-Bit Gen Gamer Fest showed me that there was. If I can find their cover of Aladdin you will hear it on a future podcast.

The last group we stayed for was The Megas. When they took the stage we had been rocking out for a solid six hours and our feet and ears really needed a break. We’ve used their music as opening songs many times before because I’ve found them to be delightful and funny. Musically they do great renditions of Mega Man songs. But their twist is that they write lyrics for every theme crafting an elegant story for the entire album. This transitioned surprisingly well to a live set. It didn’t hurt that when they were singing Crashman a person in a excellent Crashman costume crashed the stage and crashing my low expectations for their entire set to a new high. Yes I just wanted to use the word Crash as much as possible. They ended their set (and our evening) with a mash up of their main Mega Man theme track with Brental Floss doing his Mega Man 3 song. It was awesome.

The whole evening was fantastic and really brought to light a bunch of new bands and styles for Video Game music. It made me even more aware that I am not the only one who fondly remembers these old games. Also I learned about MAG Fest, a Music And Gaming Festival that is planning their ninth annual festival this coming January. And the best part? It’s here in Alexandria, just a few blocks from where I work! It’s four day’s long so I won’t be attending the whole thing but I will definitely check it out and anyone in the area should think about it as well.