Mobius Trip blows into the cartridge at The Rockwell on Sunday, 27 August 2023.

Magnificent Danger and Battlemode reach for the rings in support of a Sonic the Hedgehog themed musical birthday bash.

Some people bake a cake and plant some candles in it. Austin from Mobius Trip decided to organize a three-band bill to pay tribute to the video game Sonic Adventure 2.

The shindig went down at The Rockwell Theater, three country miles below the earth’s upper crust.

What’s the draw of the Sonic Adventure 2? The video game company behind the release took the soundtrack serious enough to publish and sell it as a standalone album with different versions.

The provenance of the release is multiple and a bit muddled. There was an original version called Multi-Dimensional, published in 2001, which contains a selection of favorites from the full soundtrack and seems to have been directed primarily at the Asian market. Later in 2002 another selection of hits, some overlapping with the first version, was released as Sonic Adventure 2: Official Soundtrack.

Neither the 2001 nor the 2002 albums contained the full score of the video game soundtrack. You can find a three-and-a-half hour Youtube stream that offers all the hits, plus a lot of marginalia. Is it complete? Not sure, but it’s definitely ample.

What are you going to hear? A lot of rock, a little hip hop, a touch of orchestral flair. Anything to keep your motor running while grabbing those rings at a million miles per hour.

Battlemode

Boston’s Battlemode has been keeping local chiptune lamps lit for a while now. A natural fit on this bill.

And if you’ve been to their shows lately, you’ve seen one of the members sporting a Hedgehog-themed backpack on stage. Coincidence or premonition?

Battlemode brings a two-person attack with the noms de guerre of Biff and Kris.

Biff (or is it Kris?) rotates between violin, melodica, synth, and handles the dancehall vocals.

Kris (or is it Biff?) specializes in a Game Boy-driven sampler and drops more hip hop-inflected lyrics.

The opening set raised the question: what, after all, is “video game music”? The musical premise of chiptune as a genre is that it uses samples culled from (or inspired by) actual video games – the bloops & bleeps! – to make standalone music.

Contrasted with a musician who would merely cover a musical theme from a video game soundtrack with a conventional instrument, chiptune is the “video game music” par excellence because it speaks in the musical idiom that is native to its subject. It’s not just a flute ripping off the Super Mario Bros theme – it’s the actual bloops & bleeps used to create something new. Art as creative expression, rather than just mimicry.

On the other hand, what counts as the “musical idiom” of video games is artificially narrow. Chiptune is indulging in a certain kind of nostalgia for game FX from the 80s and 90s. Video game music has long since moved beyond the realm of bloops & bleeps. If you’ve fired up a game in the last two decades or more, you’ve heard songs performed by “real” instruments. Sonic Adventure 2 dates back to the turn of the millennium.

At some point, ‘video game music’ just became… music! Go figure.

Magnificent Danger

Magnificent Danger! Variously referred to as a “15-something” or “18-something” “Riot Jazz Mobile Monstrosity” brought more brass to The Rockwell than the Newport Jazz Fest brought to Fort Adams.

We counted about sixteen musicians tonight, including: five saxophones (of all shapes and sizes), three trumpets, four trombones, one or two sousaphones, and two drummers (one strapped to a bass drum and the other seated at a kit).

The band understood the mission. Each song was ripped from a classic video game, except for their original “Flipper”, inspired by – god forbid – pinball. Otherwise it was all consoles and microchips, showcasing themes from Mega Man, Cuphead, Donkey Kong Country, Mario Kart, and more.

Mobius Trip

The headliner Mobius Trip proved more than the sum of its parts. The power rock quartet added musical cameos throughout the set.

Biff (or Kris?) from Battlemode sat in for a violin verse or two. The vocalist from Ruby Grove sat in for a lyrical turn. And a phalanx of brass from Magnificent Danger did a guest spot as well.

The presumptive birthday boy Austin sat behind the drumkit and enjoyed the proceedings from the best seat in the house.

How to conclude a night dedicated to Sonic the Hedgehog? With a Fall Out Boy cover, naturally. It makes sense if you don’t think about it.

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