I’ve certainly written about these guys before, but if this is your first time hearing about them, The Advantage are a rock band (two guitars, a bass and drums) who produce awe-inspiring, flawless covers of Nintendo music.
As expected, they’re great live. They opened with what is probably the best introduction to the band, “Goonies 2 - Wiseman” and launched from there into a easily six or seven minute long medley (of which there would be several). The set was pretty much non-stop crunchy goodness, they kept talk to a minimum and never lost an ounce of intensity. It’s one thing to hear their technical feats on record, but getting visual confirmation that yes, that is indeed a human being playing “Megaman II - Metal Man” on a guitar was a thrill.
Despite just putting out their last album in February and having toured much of the time since then, they already had a lot of nice new tracks on display, plus additions to their existing tracks, like a great new ending to “Metroid - Kraid’s Lair” and a new stage with the original Marble Madness. The new songs were compiled on an enjoyable new EP entitled “Underwear: SO BIG!” on sale at the merch table, with eight new songs for a mere five dollars. Here’s the tracklist:
- Fester’s Quest
- Gremlins II
- Gradius II - Boss
- TMNT II - Technodrome
- Megaman III - Sparkman
- TMNT - Minefield
- Solar Jetman - Truckstop
- Final Fantasy
The guitar/bass guys pretty much stood in one spot on stage and occasionally glanced at each other, but that’s cool since playing the riffs they do requires mad concentration. However their drummer, the incredibly talented and probably insane Spencer Seim (here’s a nice pic) had all kinds of energy and charisma, and wailed on his kit harder than anyone I’ve seen. His crazed facial expressions and frequent inspections of his drums to make sure he hadn’t broken anything were too funny.
The show’s highlight for me had to be Contra’s boss music, which was without a doubt the hardest I’ve ever been rocked. Riffage of that magnitude could topple small buildings. To sum up, I love the band more than ever, go see their show!