Arm Cannon and Wave Theory Rock the Festival.

For those that have never heard a videogame band before… “Step your game UP!” Gamers have evolved way passed the days of just playing videogames. This is a culture MAN! This year at M5 a whole bunch of game bands attended to play their hearts out and let us jam to some of our classic videogame tunes. You’d be surprised to hear what they play and to do it live with actual musical instruments is a sight to behold. Check out a list of the bands and some background notes on these guys.

• Wave Theory
• These Electro-retro speaker Freaks came all the way from California and teamed up with the mastermind behind Ransom Rath and a special guest to form the synthetic rock conglomeration known as PLANETSKILL. Together AE, Digimatic and Ransom performed a videogame rock opera spanning multiple game titles on various systems. These guys even broke out into a battle rap session using game metaphors. SICKNESS!
  
  
• Power Glove   
• POWERGLOVE is not only your favorite failed NES Controller or the famous fashion statement that TriForce or Shawn Phase wears, but is an amazing entourage of double-kick and screaming melody from Boston that hit a lot of gamers directly in the face in the form of serious metal.
  
  
• Neskimos
• The Neskimos are formidable foes with a crazy need to rock it all the way from Florida to Virginia. Their claims to fame include MTV’s Video Game Awards and playing Bionic Commando for 30 Minutes at M3. This time they brought there “A” game.
  
  
• Shawn Phase of Temp Sound Solutions
• SHAWN PHASE of Baltimore has been labeled the Kurt Cobain of 8-Bit and featured in Nintendo Power. Is it because of the pixilated pants, the power ranger mask, or the Konami tattoos? He brought his latest CD to M5 and debut it. Now You’re Playing with Power vol. 6 which has 120 tracks over two CDs.
  
  
• Arm Cannon
• ARMCANNON are shameless instrumental programming mathematicians fueled by the trembling rage of ancient Nordic Deities. Hailing from Buffalo with a capital O, these new comers brought the ballroom down with a little bit of rock in their added arrangement to each game tune they played.
  
  
• Year 200X
• Year 200X are a group of friends brought together by the love of two things: videogames and metal. Bringing themselves all the way from Lansing, Michigan, their goal is to merge some of there metal into gaming. They came to M5 for the first time to rock it with gamers and the other bands.
  
  
• This Place is Haunted
• These guys come from State College, PA where they have been frightening small children with there music since they were got together. Now with their new drummer JT and added guitarist Tom, they transformed Castlevania music and tons of other games into a new that should be added into Konami’s next game.
  
  
• Smash Brothers
• The Smash Bros, (not be confused with Nintendo’s Super Smash Brothers 64 or Melee) was formed from a group of loosely-knit videogame arrangers from all over the country. They’ve been around since M2 and are a household name at MAGFEST.
  
  
• Sprite Slowdown
• CHROMELODEON started out in 2001 as a massive eight-member project in Philadelphia. SPRITE SLOWDOWN was established after needing to differentiate between the original videogame materials being produced. Over the years they have toured the United States four times. They have finally stepped down as they played their unofficial “Final Show” at M5 on Saturday Night. It featured Chromelodeon along with other surprises.

Music is a very important part to any culture and that holds especially true to videogames. As time passes more and more videogame bands are emerging. Music and Games is definitely the place to start and has given birth in terms of recognition to a lot of the gaming bands that exist in the United States today. Talks are already in the air by Music and Games staff about hosting an audition period during M6 for where new and up coming videogame bands within the Greater Gamer Community get a chance to display their talents live for MAGFest attendees. This will help bring out new talent within the community and that can be a great tool in the further development of the Gamer Culture.

Each year the music segment of the M series gets bigger and bigger. MAGFest has helped prior bands gain the recognition that they need to go commercial and now people can get to enjoy their music on a mainstream level. MAGFest is a much needed community entity that bridges cultural content by gamers to the ever expanding videogame industry. It is community developments like this that organizations such as MAGFest, Empire Arcadia and more provide to the industry both directly and indirectly that shows a promising future for both gamers and business men in the market of gaming. Here’s to the future.

If you were not in attendence for the concert…no amount of detail can tell you how fun and exciting it was. However you can always look at the pictures and imagine you were there. It’s the best we could do. Sorry.