Nintendoculture: Minibosses, Freezepop and Touchboy
Posted by Skrud at Monday, November 13th 2006 at 7:00pm
Following the Arcadia Festival was the Minibosses concert at Club Soda. Last year, the Minibosses played at the festival itself – but I think the idea of having a separate show at a club was a good one, since it allowed for more performing artists.
DJ/Mixer Touchboy started things off with an upbeat electronic blend of Gameboy sounds and techno beats. It was some pretty good stuff, though doesn’t make for much of a visual show. That’s where Harley and I realized that it’s great music to listen to while playing video games, and started playing some competitive Tetris DS.
The next band was Freezepop, which I instantly fell in love with. The music is entirely uncharacteristic for me: electro/synth pop that sounds like Depeche Mode crossed with a Gameboy. Their music is recorded almost entirely on a Yamaha QY70, a curious portable device that itself resembles a Gameboy. The music has this 8-bit, cheesy, bubblegum-pop meets femme-bot quality to it. It’s addictive, simple but not overly simplistic, and fun. After the set I rushed to buy both full length albums, Fancy Ultra-Fresh and Freezepop Forever along with a T-shirt – and got a free EP and poster, too.
Freezepop has been in a few Playstation games, including both Guitar Hero games with the songs Get Ready 2 Rokk and Less Talk More Rokk – so it’s entirely possible that you’ve heard them before. According to the official website, they’re “Hip enough for hipsters but nerdy enough for nerds.”
Finally the Minibosses took the stage, playing music from tons of NES classics like Mario 2 (aka Doki Doki Panic), Castlevania, Metroid, Mike Tyson’s Punchout and Contra, among others. What was most surprising about the Minibosses was the mosh pit that opened up … It’s Contra, not Slayer! It was a violent mosh pit, but it was pretty damn big for a place like Club Soda. I’ve seen smaller mosh pits at death metal shows.
The entire concert, and the Arcadia Festival in general, was infused with love for Nintendo. It’s as if all the people that grew up with Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and The Wizard came out of their hiding places showing off the impact that Nintendo has had on them. Most people were wearing t-shirts with Mario or Zelda references and – this the best part – whenever a slow song was being played, instead of holding up lighters, people set the brightness level on their DS Lites all the way up and waved them around.
Nerdy? Hells yes. But it’s also awesome.
