14 DAY TRIAL // Yes, it's true, Rock Band is hitting the road on a coast-to-coast tour across 24 USA cites starting this Sunday, to give fans and future owners of the game the chance to try out the popular and very anticipated title, developed by Harmonix. In addition, musicians can choose to participate in a Rock Off audition for the opportunity to appear on MTV's TRL, according to Harmonix and MTV Games' official word. Two selected bands will participate in a live Battle of the Bands, with the top group opening for one of rock's biggest bands at the Rock Band launch concert this Holiday 2007.
Is this the best news for music game fans or what?! Here's Jeff Yapp, EVP, MTV Program Enterprises, confirming everything mentioned above: "We're a couple months away from the launch of Rock Band and the response has already been incredible. We simply couldn't wait any longer to get the game into consumers' hands and give them a taste of the power of the Rock Band experience. This tour will give everyone from casual music fans, to hard core gamers and professional musicians the chance to live out their rock star fantasies on an authentic concert stage and the chance to audition for a once in a lifetime opportunity to fulfill their rock star fantasies live on MTV in front of thousands of fans."
As I mentioned in the introductory column, the tour begins on Sunday, September 9th, in Las Vegas, during the "2007 MTV Video Music Awards" Weekend. Rock Band tour rigs (outfitted) will spread across the country on a 24 city tour, according to the official announcement, from California to Cleveland, Atlanta to Arizona and everywhere in between, all this in an effort to give music fans the chance to play on a full concert style stage with all of the lights and gigantic sound systems they love so much when they go to a classic arena rock concert.
OK, here's the schedule and the locations included (tour rigs will travel to local college campuses and other locations around the country), according to the report:
Las Vegas, NV September 9 - 16, 2007 Milwaukee, WI September 13 - 16, 2007 Sacramento, CA September 20 - 23, 2007 Columbus, OH September 20 - 23, 2007 Seattle, WA September 27 - 30, 2007 Chicago, IL September 27 - 30, 2007 Portland, OR October 4 - 7, 2007 Pittsburgh, PA October 4 - 7, 2007 Oakland, CA October 11 - 14, 2007 Cleveland, OH October 11 - 14, 2007 San Francisco, CA October 17 - 21, 2007 Philadelphia, PA October 18 - 21, 2007 San Diego, CA October 25 - 28, 2007 Baltimore, MD October 25 - 28, 2007 Los Angeles, CA October 31 - November 18, 2007 New York, NY November 1 - 4, 2007 Boston, MA November 8 - 11, 2007 New Jersey November 15 - 18, 2007 Phoenix, AZ November 27 - 30, 2007 Atlanta, GA November 27 - December 2, 2007 Austin, TX December 6 - 9, 2007 New Orleans, LA December 6 - 9, 2007 Dallas, TX December 13 - 16, 2007 Orlando, FL December 13 - 16, 2007
Also, Harmonix and MTV Games say that specific locations for each city will be released separately and for now, gamers have this website to check out until the tour begins.