Last night, Rock Band developer Harmonix treated a few lucky game journalists to a once in a lifetime event: a private concert with rock legends The Who.
The identity of the concert’s “special guest” had remained a secret until yesterday, when Reuters leaked the news that it would be The Who. The few hundred guests fortunate enough to be invited to attend amused themselves playing Rock Band on a side stage until the doors finally opened and the band took the stage.
Singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend bantered amiably with each other as they led the band through a two-hour set including classics like “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Pinball Wizard,” “The Kids Are Alright,” and that song from CSI, “Who Are You?”
“So, do you all work on Rock Band?” Townshend asked the crowd, receiving an enormous cheer in response. “Do you all write bits of code? Where’s the guy that chose the colors for the buttons, that’s what I’d like to know.” (Sitting in the front row, as it turned out.) Townshend said the colors were all wrong, and blamed them for his poor performance when he tried Rock Band at Christmas.
Game journalists are a notoriously hard to impress lot, but everyone in my immediate vicinity – myself included – kept poking each other and making brilliant observations like, “Dude…that’s The Who.“
