Rough Gig but A Double Encore and Lots of Unlocks

I broke down and played Event 6 at Palace Hall Friday night even though I still hadn't max-ed a single solo. It was horrible and I wish I had waited. Somehow, though, the night wasn't a complete waste and I got a ton of unlocks, plus my first double encore.

Event 6 Set List (unmodified from RS Recommended playlist):

Mean Bitch
Are You Gonna Go My Way
Rebel, Rebel
High and Dry

Encores
Song 2
Run Back to Your Side

As of Event 6, I had played each of these songs 10-15 times, except for Are You Gonna Go My Way which I had played 21 times. (This doesn't include Riff Repeater work I did on solos.)


First of all, I didn't have my notebook out and ready, so I don't have individual song scores for the event, at least not for the regular set list. Proof that I really wasn't prepared to play this event. I vaguely remember that I got roughly 70,000 on each of the four songs on my set list - all well below my best rehearsal scores. One was in the 60s, but I cannot remember which one. Probably Rebel, Rebel; I have trouble making that skip from the low E to the B string in the riff. I certainly didn't take time to set up a video camera. Maybe at Event 7.


Next, I should have run through the songs once - or at least run through one or two of them once - just to get warmed up. I went in cold.

And, my tuning was off. Not sure how the built-in tuner does this, but it seems that the RS tuner will frequently say my guitar is in tune when it really isn't. When Event 6 started off, I was most definitely not in tune. It just got worse as things went along. It was especially noticeable when I hit chords, which cost me dearly on my second encore. Anyone else seem to have this problem? I've checked my intonation and, even though I'm playing a relatively cheap Les Paul knock-off, it's not a piece of junk and the intonation is pretty good. In fact, if I double-check my tuning outside of RS, my guitar sounds great. Something else is going on but I don't know what.

Anyway, after cringing my way through the four songs on my set list to a generally unenthusiastic crowd, I actually got an encore! Song 2 by Blur, which I sort of killed - 74,507. Not like I've never heard it before - it's on about a dozen TV commercials, right? And, it's pretty easy. But, hey, I'll take a pat on the back for it.
Then, I got a SECOND encore! Unbelievable. I was not feeling it, though, because I played so badly on the original set list that even a really good first encore wasn't enough to shake off the suckiness. And, my second encore - Run Back to Your Side by Eric Clapton - fit right into this whole crappy gig. Not the song itself. The fact that my tuning was still off and I got a score of 7866. That's not a typo. I mean "seven-thousand, eight-hundred, sixty-six points," RSP. I'm thoroughly embarrassed by this and damn near didn't even post that. But, it illustrates a gripe I have with the Rocksmith program.


Apart from the RS tuner being a bit "generous," I've mentioned before that I want a big red E-stop for events (an emergency stop button like they have on heavy equipment). Had I been playing a REAL gig, I'd have stopped everything and retuned. I would not have just kept going and sucking. I don't know if hitting the Start button would have stopped things or not. But, I didn't want to mess around grabbing the XBox controller and wasting time if I wasn't going to be able to pause this train wreck. And, if you can access the tuner from an event, I don't know how. Not that it would likely have helped. The tuner was what got me into this mess. So, as they say, the show went on. It was sort of amusing to watch the crowd lose interest. I'm surprised they didn't throw lighters at me. I get a 74,507 on a song that I've never played before and then I get a 7866 on a very simple 3-chord D=A=E blues strum? That's a problem.

Despite all the sucking that went on, I ended up with a total score for the event of over 300,000 RSP and a total overall score of 4,259,734 (still a national support act). I also unlocked a new EPI-G310 guitar, the Woo Hoo tone, Octangle tone, Space Ostrich (song), and the Regency venue. More than I felt like I deserved, but all these prizes did sort of take some of the sting off.

Still, I was pissed about my score on the second encore. So, in keeping with my personality, as soon as I jotted all this info down in my RS notebook, even though it was about 3:00 AM, I pulled up Run Back to Your Side. Four more times. First, of course, I checked, fixed, and rechecked my tuning, making sure it sounded right when I played chords - whether RS's tuner said I was good to go or not. First replay: 69,589. Next, 103,252 with, I'll add, 100% note accuracy and a streak of 89 notes. This unlocked master mode for the song. So, of course, I had to give it a shot. I performed the song two times at 3rd Street Lounge. My first performance got me 169,540 (84/38). I wasn't happy with the lower % and streak, so I performed again (oddly enough, to the exact same crowd). The second performance - 197,259 (96%/80). Somewhere along in there I unlocked the Sunset Blues tone, my third tone unlock for the night. Things could only have been better if the cute blonde chick just off to the right of center stage would have thrown her bra. Something the programmers at Ubi might look into. . .

So, that was Event 6. Event Manager already has me lined up for two more gigs. Since I didn't really have all my data gathering dialed in from the start of my own journey, I'm going to start tracking my kids' progress as well. My son apparently has been sneaking onto the XBox to play; I secretly applaud him for this, but as a result I've missed a lot of his early progress. My daughter, however, has only played Satisfaction a handful of times so I can capture a pretty good snapshot of how Rocksmith works for a 13-year old girl who, frankly, isn't all that musical. Keep rocking and keep following my blog (not because I make any money off of this but because it's not much fun to write if nobody is reading).