Leveled Up to National Support Act, 6

Last night I moved up to Level 6, which is still "National Support Act" status. That happens when your total score reaches 3,500,000. (Level 6 is apparently the same status as Level 5; only the number in the little black circle changes when you reach 6.)

I qualified the final song in my Event 6 setlist (High and Dry, by Radiohead) last night. I qualified on the first play-through (no riff repeater) and it only took 4 plays to get over 70,000. Pretty easy song except for an unexpected/unfamiliar F#-something chord.


Event 6

Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz
Rebel, Rebel -                            David Bowie
Mean Bitch -                              Taddy Porter
High and Dry -                          Radiohead

I'm going to hold off playing this event until I get all 4 songs over 70,000. I might even go higher - partly because I don't want to rush through the Journey but mostly because I just don't have these songs down like I'd actually play them on a real stage.

Somewhere in this set list I found a couple of chimed harmonics so I ran through the recommended harmonics technique challenge a few times last night. Not too hard to gold medal on, but I've been able to play harmonics for a long, long time. If they're new to you, it could take a little while to work your way through this challenge - but not too long. This unlocked the harmonics game in the Guitarcade. Haven't tried that one yet.

I'm working on the Christmas pack songs so that hopefully by Christmas I'll be able to play all three of them from memory. I'm starting with God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. So far I've run through it several times and feel like I'm getting the hang of it. Score is right around 30,000.

I also like running through Surf Hell every night just because it's pretty quick and has a 4-fret stretch in the riff. Good exercise and fun to play. For some reason it's still tough for me to remember exactly how it goes without hearing it, but I've got my score on this one over 80,000. Biggest rough spots seem to be the transitions - I just need to keep working it so I can pull my head out and get the overall structure down.

Unnatural Selection continues to give me a hard time and I cannot figure out why. I have the Drop-D tuning issue pretty well figured out and I checked and tweaked the intonation so I'm not missing notes due to tuning. Just can't seem to get over 41,000 on this one. It pisses me off because I'm not willing to just give up - but it's VERY long so every time I run through it is like 6 minutes of my life spent playing something I don't even like!

I've run through a couple of the alternate arrangements on songs I've already played in past Events: Higher Ground, Outshined, and a few others. This is a good way to get some extra points. That's not why I did it, but if that's what you're into it's an easy way to inflate your score. Now I know how to play the parts of some songs where I used to be resting (like the long rest in Outshined before the big open sustained D. . . ). Can't wait to play some of these with my son in multiplayer mode.

Issues:
The only problem I'm having with Rocksmith itself right now is that they supposedly released some Pearl Jam songs as DLC the other day and they still aren't showing up in my Download Store. Anybody know anything about that?