Live Muzik: The Advantage

Hello all,

It is time for me to start up yet another feature here on the Johnny U. "Live Muzik" is going to talk about different live shows that I feel are special (or unspecial) enough to be commented on in blog form. I'm gonna start this thing up with The Advantage, a band from Sacramento that specializes in taking the music from old Nintendo games and adapting that music to guitar, bass and drums.

Nintendo game music from the first generation Nintendo system was never meant to be played in this way. The synthesized beeps of boops are in such intricate orders and ridiculous speeds that to play them on guitar would require like 35 fingers. Or 11 arms. Or a bad ass robot programmed to play Nintendo music. Or...these California dudes.


They blazed through music from Mega Man, Metal Gear (my personal favorite), Gradius, Contra and Super Mario. The entire time it sounded, note for note, like the music from the old Nintendo games, except it rocked really, extremely, and very hard.

The experience was also heightened by the fact that the band consisted of a bass player who looked like a chilled out Biblical character, two guitar players (one who was wearing a purple sleeveless T and black jorts...YES!) who looked perpetually sleepy (or stoned...whatever) and a drummer who looked like Animal from The Muppets. The drummer would look at the other members of the band with a scary intensity. He would also sometimes look into the crowd with this same intensity. At one point, for a fleeting second, his black eyes caught mine and I had to look away before my head exploded from the rock powers he was throwing at me. The four dudes (other than the drummer...who was a wound up ball of crazed energy) really had no "stage presence" but the precision that I knew it took to play the riffs these dudes were playing made me turn a blind eye to the fact that they were dismissing all forms of rock stage antics.


The questions this band would raise would be, first, do you have to know and/or like old school Nintendo music to like this band? And second, do you have to be someone who knows enough about music and instruments to appreciate the skill these songs require to really like them?

As far as the first one is concerned I would say no. If you are familiar with Nintendo game music you may get something extra out of an Advantage show but if you don't you're still going to appreciate the awesome rock that is being blasted into your general direction. The lack of singing (because Nintendo games don't have singing...but they should) can be a detractor to some but so many of the guitar lines serve the purpose of a vocal part that, for me, it didn't make a difference.

To answer the second question I would say no as well, but on that one it definitely helps if you know just how difficult the stuff these dudes are playing is. For me, during certain lulls in the show where the dudes would keep playing the same Bomberman riff over and over or something I would be able to simply examine the fingerings and rhythms and marvel at the monumental speed and difficulty they demanded.

Overall, this was one of the best shows I've ever seen. My mouth was agape in awe throughout. Go see The Advantage live. Do it.

The Advantage (myspace)
The Advantage (website)

8.5/10
Derek