Should my band play these songs?

[Lie Mf B]

I've recently formed a band that plays video game music. We consist of guitar, keyboard, bass and drums and don't really have an established style, except that we aim for "real" musical qualities as a band and do our own versions of more or less popular songs, so to speak.

Now, I'd love to hear your reactions on the following suggestions for songs to play live. Do you love/hate any of them more than others?

Any other songs you really would like a live band to do on stage?


Starcraft - Terran Theme 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V9wMRuJuYw

World of Warcraft Theme Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-MEuBRMxxI

Phoenix Wright - Turnabout Sisters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt0hrHroPz8

Chrono Trigger - World Revolution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaULITIzS3g

Diablo - Tristram
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvvXsreyo30

Tetris Theme (Gameboy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmCCQxVBfyM

Super Mario Bros 2 - Title / Menu / Level 1 (NES)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WsaclyckD8

Rygar - Level 1? (NES)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNrzw8wKjkQ

Mega Man 2 - Title (NES)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auQv90TfXrI

Mega Man 1 - Fire Man (NES)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIHh0no7pVs

Mega Man 3 - Gemini Man (NES)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmQXi9WsrzQ

Journey to Silius - Title (NES)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkWYvENgxwA

Final Fantasy IV - The Black Mages - Dancing Mad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILtNvCmh-MQ

[A Random Tiger]

What do you mean by "real" musical qualities?

[atmuh]

yeah usually by real music people mean not video game music but this is video game music so im not sure what youre going for here

[The Damned]

You could just play the songs you want.

[EdgeCrusher]

Kinda late to the party there. I think the way of video game cover bands have reached the peak of awesomeness and are in major decline.

[OA]

Starcraft - one of my favorite songs on the PC, you'd have to arrange it to be exciting live. As is, it may be a bit midtempo. Otherwise a keeper.

WoW - Similar to Starcraft, it may be difficult to pull this off as 4 piece and really capture the nuances, but if you could somehow do the choir parts, you'd be golden. Another really good melody.

Turnabout Sisters - A perfect song to play live in just about any style.

World Revolution - Exciting and a lot of good parts. This would make a pretty great live track.

Tristram - ths would be a good break I think if you had a lot of uptempo tracks, but the lack of a huge melody throughout might not translate that well to a live audience, as the song's strengths are all the textures. I'd suggest passing on this one in alive setting.

Tetris - Easy nostalgia points for this one, the crowd would eat it up.

Mario 2 - Not as overly recognizable as the tetris theme, but still pretty dang popular, this is a good style changeup, and pretty fun as well. It'd translate well.

Rygar - Great Melody and an interesting bass part. You'd really have to fill out this one in your arrangement, but it's got the makings of a great track.

Mega Man 2 - If you can learn to play the slow part in the dark, this would be the most epic of openers. When it gets fast, hit the lights and BAM!

Fire Man - The verse melody is a bit weak, and I think you'd want to redo the bass part, but the chorus melody is awesome. This one could go either way.

Gemini Man - You'd want to bring out the intricate counter melodies on this one, but harmonized leads are always awesome. The only issue with that is that you'd want to have the keyboard filling out the chords as well as doing leads or it'd sound too empty.

Journey to Silius - Awesome track, totally do this one. It's driving and has a lot of good parts.

Dancing Mad - this would be a great closer song. Go for it. :-)


Overall some pretty strong tracks, I think you'd do well with this as a setlist. :-)

[Meteo Xavier]

You do know Square-Enix has a thing about people playing their musics live, right? Last time I checked, they demanded royalties.

[big giant circles]

Meteo, please stop posting just for the sake of saying something, especially if it's completely not useful to anyone in any way.

Back to the thread, I would personally be happy to hear any and all of those themes played live.

[WillRock]

any band with mutherpluckin B in is going to rock.

Just sayin.

and yeah, I like the choices... Journey to silius ftw :D

[Ramaniscence]

Starcraft - one of my favorite songs on the PC, you'd have to arrange it to be exciting live. As is, it may be a bit midtempo. Otherwise a keeper.

WoW - Similar to Starcraft, it may be difficult to pull this off as 4 piece and really capture the nuances, but if you could somehow do the choir parts, you'd be golden. Another really good melody.

Turnabout Sisters - A perfect song to play live in just about any style.

World Revolution - Exciting and a lot of good parts. This would make a pretty great live track.

Tristram - ths would be a good break I think if you had a lot of uptempo tracks, but the lack of a huge melody throughout might not translate that well to a live audience, as the song's strengths are all the textures. I'd suggest passing on this one in alive setting.

Tetris - Easy nostalgia points for this one, the crowd would eat it up.

Mario 2 - Not as overly recognizable as the tetris theme, but still pretty dang popular, this is a good style changeup, and pretty fun as well. It'd translate well.

Rygar - Great Melody and an interesting bass part. You'd really have to fill out this one in your arrangement, but it's got the makings of a great track.

Mega Man 2 - If you can learn to play the slow part in the dark, this would be the most epic of openers. When it gets fast, hit the lights and BAM!

Fire Man - The verse melody is a bit weak, and I think you'd want to redo the bass part, but the chorus melody is awesome. This one could go either way.

Gemini Man - You'd want to bring out the intricate counter melodies on this one, but harmonized leads are always awesome. The only issue with that is that you'd want to have the keyboard filling out the chords as well as doing leads or it'd sound too empty.

Journey to Silius - Awesome track, totally do this one. It's driving and has a lot of good parts.

Dancing Mad - this would be a great closer song. Go for it. :-)


Overall some pretty strong tracks, I think you'd do well with this as a setlist. :-)

I agree with everything said above. ++

[EdgeCrusher]

Meteo, please stop posting just for the sake of saying something, especially if it's completely not useful to anyone in any way.

Yeah, that. They won't demand money just for a band playing songs on a set list at a show.

[Gario]

Well, those songs on that setlist would all rock - just gotta echo what's been said (Starcraft Terran song? Diablo Tristram? Brilliant.)... Hey, do some more Silver Surfer on the live set, too (perhaps the intro music :nicework:).

Just a suggestion, if you're takin' em', seeing you're a SS fan.

[danimal cannon]

bands playing game music is a stupid idea.

[Lie Mf B]

What do you mean by "real" musical qualities?

Maybe I should have written "traditional" musical qualities. I meant that we're going to sound like a band doing songs arranged for a band, and not like a bunch of geeks replicating the original VGM notes on stage. We're going to put effort into making these songs funky and swinging, even danceable.

The list I made is not necessarily songs I like myself, they're just suggestions from the band members, and I just took the chance here to see what people's impressions are. Some of the songs -- such as Fire Man from MM1 -- already have arrangements ready, otherwise they might not be on the list.

I definitely don't think I'm late to the party with a band doing VGM music. What were you thinking, that we'd play live on stage on the OCR Forum? We're based in Uppsala, Sweden, and there's nobody here doing the same thing, it's not as if the market was saturated...

Thanks for the feedback and ideas!
Silver Surfer might be a possibility in the future, for sure, but we're going to put priority into more known songs in the beginning.