I don’t particularly like going to bars without a reason, but playing Rock Band or Guitar Hero is often an excellent reason. In general, if I’ve found out about a Rock Band bar night in the city, I’ve gone to it. So, here’s a list:
Pianos Bar & Grill: Tuesdays at 10 PM-close, Lower East Side, Guitar Hero 3 played.
This is the oldest of these bar nights I know of; it’s been running for at least a year now. Unfortunately, they never switched over to Rock Band. When I asked their organizers why they haven’t switched over, they told me that they tried running a Rock Band night once, but too many people were failing out and having trouble with the game; also, their floor plan doesn’t make it easy to set up, and they would have to use the PS2 version. So, for the foreseeable future, Pianos will be running GH3, and I won’t be going. But, if you do still like GH3, it’s pretty well run; the organizers are good, they have excellent fries, and if you mention it, they may do a “free drink for a round winner” type thing (they used to do this as a matter of course, but stopped at some point.) They also lost their original organizer recently to another bar, so they’re still having some transition troubles as of last week.
Angels and Kings: Wednesdays, East Village, Rock Band played
I’ve never been to this weekly event, but I’ll try this week. But I do have something to review from a day back in December when Harmonix employees came to New York to run a very poorly advertised Rock Band night at this bar. It was clearly a last minute thing, but everyone was very pleasant. Unlike most of these bar nights, the staging here had the game projected on the far end of the bar from the players and stage, which meant that the players were facing the crowd rather than away like at every other bar. That was cool. What was less cool was that because the bar doesn’t have that tall of a ceiling, people standing up between the players and the screen would block the screen and make it very difficult to play. That day had special equipment brought from HMX, including two prototype wireless XBox 360 guitar controllers; unfortunately, the prototypes tended to not work. I’m not sure what they’re using now. Hopefully there will be an update on this bar later this week.
Living Room Lounge: Sundays at 7 PM-close, South Park Slope, Brooklyn, Rock Band played
So far, this remains my favorite of the bar nights, because the organizers actually understand the game and it’s a much nicer and larger space than the Manhattan bars. Unfortunately, it can still get a little boring if you come alone, because there’s a somewhat insular group of regulars running the Rock Band night. But at least they know what they’re doing, and they have a good number of downloadable songs. The screen is very large and clear here. The only real problem…it’s usually pretty empty except for the regulars.
Village Pourhouse: Tuesdays, East Village, Rock Band played. See my review here.
At the moment, Living Room Lounge is the best one, though Angels & Kings may be quite good as well. Only go to Pianos if you’re not bored with GH3 yet, and just don’t go to the Village Pourhouse until they get their act together and stop treating their Rock Band night like a kiddy table at Thanksgiving.
