Rock Band Night – Village Pourhouse

I left the TV on in the background the other night, when I suddenly heard, “And Guitar Hero night is apparently more popular than the Giants games!” Immediately, I went to the living room and rewinded the local news program, and they showed footage of a Rock Band night at the Village Pourhouse, at 3rd Ave. & 11th St. I checked their website, and headed off for their “Guitar Hero” night last Tuesday.

Sadly, there wasn’t much there. I showed up around 8:30 PM, and went to a deserted back part of the bar to find a Rock Band setup with a group of 4 20-somethings attempting to play (badly), and no management types managing it. The microphone was plugged in, but wasn’t working; apparently, no one realized that you have to plug in a standard controller to make it work. The drum set was broken (the yellow pad had a broken wire and didn’t work), but no one seemed to know about getting a warranty replacement. The 20-somethings left after about 20 minutes, and I stuck around and had dinner. No one else showed up, and I left unsatisfied.

That being said, maybe it was just a slow night; apparently they had had a tournament the previous week with about 40 people showing up. Since this tournament was never posted on one of the major RB/GH sites like ScoreHero or the Rock Band forums, or on Kotaku or Joystiq, I doubt that any particularly good players showed up.

At least the food was decent, if very overpriced–and at least it was Rock Band. Pianos still hasn’t switched over; apparently they tried to do a Rock Band night and had too many groups failing out.